Journal

I started this book a couple of months back but only got to read the first chapter, I’d been so busy shooting weddings I never found the time to pick it up. I was away for a week to Catalonia so this was the perfect opportunity and to be honest I didn’t put it down the whole trip, much to the detriment of the tourist sights of Barcelona. This is a great read, it’s about two people over a twenty period of their life, very funny and very moving with a few surprises. I won’t say too much about it as it would spoil it if you were to read it but it is without doubt one of my top ten favourite books.

I got this book at Christmas and have been dipping in and out of it ever since, reading sections of it in no particular order, I decided last week to read it from cover to cover and in the right order. Stuart Murdoch is front man of the Scottish band Belle and Sebastian, one of my favourite bands, as you would expect from him he describes himself as 26% rock star. The book is based on his journal and he reveals a lot about his thoughts and the daily trials and tribulations of his life. He’s precious but not in a bad way, I found him funny. If you know who he is or if you like Belle and Sebastian it’s a good read.

I heard of Philippe Cheng many years ago, a great photographer who I feel never really got the acclaim he deserved, a wedding photographer who I greatly admire. I managed to track down a mint condition copy of his book ‘Forever and a day’ that was published in 1999, when I got it I was amazed by how many images by the top wedding photographers in the world today are influenced by his work, images that were taken over 20 years ago. As I looked through the book it made me realise that great wedding photographers have a unique ability to take photographs that are as relevant today as they were on the day they were captured. His unique style of simple posing and documentary photography is an inspiration to me and something that I strive to do at every wedding, it continues to push me to be a better wedding photographer in every area of my work.

Not wanting to breach any copyright law, here are a small sample of some of the images in his book that would not look out of place today.

The last image is a picture of Philippe Cheng and his wife Bastienne Schmidt who is also a photographer.

I first read this book while I was studying ‘A’ level History of Art 22 years ago.

To be honest it really didn’t sink in to my consciousness, I was cramming for exams at the time and not really reading it for myself, anyway I passed and that’s all that mattered at the time.

Priorities in my life have changed now, I was in a bookshop recently looking for a present for someone and drifted over to the photography section and there it was, Susan Sontag – On Photography. It brought a smile to my face, it reminded me of a great time in my life when I was a young photography student taking photographs for myself, being care free, travelling, etc.

Obviously I bought it, my original copy was covered in pencilled in notes and high lighter pen and had long disappeared. This time I read it for myself and my whole perspective on what photography is and what it stands for has changed, it has given me a whole new direction and a different way of seeing things.

Books mean different things to different people, maybe I am being sentimental.  Every serious photographer should read this book, even just the once. If you do buy it, stick with it, it’s not an easy read.

I will leave you with an extract from the book.

…the very question of whether photography is or is not an art is essentially a misleading one. Although photography generates works that can be called art – it requires subjectivity, it can lie, it gives aesthetic pleasure — photography is not, to begin with, an art form at all. Like language, it is a medium in which works of art (among other things) are made. Out of language, one can make scientific discourse, bureaucratic memoranda, love letters, grocery lists, and Balzac’s Paris. Out of photography, one can make passport pictures, weather photographs, X-rays, wedding pictures, and Atget’s Paris.

On Photography by Susan Sontag