Sarah Moon (Photofile)

This is part of a series of a lil bigger than pocket size paperbacks collecting the work of great modern photographers. It's 82 pages of duotone and color artwork, to paraphrase the advertising - altho the color section makes up only a VERY small portion of the work represented. The book is printed on glossy paper, which definitely serves photographs well. The pages are thick, so there's no bleed thru from behind. The binding and cover are strong. The images are BEAUTIFULLY reproduced.If you are already a Sarah Moon fan, i'd think you'd really like this. It's a good representation of her oeuvre, photography from her fashion and advertising work, as well as those done strictly as art; nature photography, posed shots, candid shots, profiles, landscapes, wildlife - with the art photographs taking up the bulk of the book. The work is spread from the 70s to the present and includes a three page preface by Moon - her prose is as poetic and dreamy as her photography. It's an amazing insight into her mind and working process, if not a long one. There's an even shorter Afterward that's only the tiniest bit analytic, the author spending a great deal of time talking about himself witnessing Moon's process, describing what we've already seen in the photos, without delving into much criticism. A few pages in the back are devoted to a "Select" bibliography & List of Exhibitions, as well as lists of Awards and her Films.There is an amazing dreamy quality to Sarah Moon's work, and i'm not entirely clear why she isn't classified as a Surrealist more often - perhaps because she wasn't part of the original Surrealist group, and wasn't under the patronizing thumb of Andre Breton. However, Moon is definitely a modern Surrealist, her photographs are tone poems of the mind, cracks of light into the subconscious, dreams sometimes feverish or sublime; strange and beautiful. Even her fashion photography has a dream-like quality. I read in a book on Fashion that Moon "always" used a soft focus, but this isn't in the least true, she varies how she used focus depending on what she was doing called for, images are sometimes sharp as a razor or as misty as fog and anything in-between. She used soft focus and/or long shutter speeds, and her incredible ability to paint with light, in order to create enchanting, ephemeral images that float before you - or that tear reality apart. For instance, there's a photo she took from the top of an enclosed alligator cage; light is coming both from a trellised circular window above, and a barred window in a wall just above the animals - the alligators are half in this scalloped light and half in shade, parts of their bodies look like they're fading into the floor, the scales on their back floating in space.But sometimes, her images call for a sharp focus - like one of a juggler dressed in black, sitting on the floor, three white juggling balls caught perfectly suspended in the air (two more are in his hands). In this one, the surreality comes not from soft focus and nebulous edges, but rather from how the subject is sitting in a perfect splits, on a barren floor that is only partially lit, from far away and above. There's another of an elephant, seeming in the middle of sitting, or scratching herself like a dog, looking oddly with one eye at the camera.In one photo, Moon takes a tarp, with a beautiful photograph of a wooded lane enlarged on it, tacked up to some partially hidden frame, in an alley in some European city, with a lil girl standing in front of the tarp. What's interesting is that Moon makes no attempt to hide the edges of the tarp, she makes no attempt to blur the image but maintains a sharp focus, yet, it works perfectly in creating a surreal world by how she uses the light. Moon creates alternate realities out of landscapes, a woman plucking a chicken, circus performers, fashion models wrapped in shadows, wildlife captured in mid flight, eerie shots taken in studios, parks, city streets, zoos, circuses, country lanes.Moon's presentation is part of the art - she uses film that often has slight, sepia tone, that is rich in shadings of blacks, greys, browns and even a deep orange. Sometimes, when i look at this book when i'm tired, before going to bed, and my consciousness drifts, and my eyes half close, unexpected autumnal colors will leap from the page - an optical illusion created by Moon's ability to use light and contrast. Her photographs are developed in a messy way, it looks like she manipulates her photos by hand during developing sometimes - usually in a subtle way with cracks or texture on the film's surface, but sometimes with a heavy hand, artfully destroying parts of an image. She appears to use a solarization technique in some of her work. Her photos are framed by the way she uses her developing chemicals.Moon's photographs are always well composed, altho sometimes with an odd sense of balance, or by finding strange ways to create balance, or taking them from odd angles. Looking at this book isn't just perusing art, it's entering a world. Sometimes that world is hazy and dreamy, sometimes it is sharp and nightmarish. She'll put her models in strange costumes. She uses exposure to deepen shadows, she uses light to shape an image and/or create an ethereal quality. This book may be short and thin, but it is a journey, an amazing, surreal journey, that is sometimes unsettling, sometimes enchanting and beautiful, but always interesting.As i said, this is part of a series by the publisher, Photofile, with volumes on interesting photographers like  Berenice Abbot. Photopoche , Man Ray, Helmut Newton, Lewis Carroll, a collection of  Surrealist Photography (Photofile) , and many others. Their ad copy on the back cover boasts "a critical introduction," but that certainly wasn't the case in this book. It was great to have a preface by Moon. It would've been nice if they'd included at least a short analysis of her work. However, i would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves surrealist photography, or just great photography in general.

per chi vuole fare un'idea generale del lavoro di questa fotografa relativamente ai suoi lavori in banco e nero.Ci sono tre pagine introduttive in inglese, le rimanenti sono pagine con le sue fotografie.Al centro del libro sono presenti un a decina di pagine con alcune sue foto a colori realizzate con la sua particolare tecnica di sviluppo.Fondamentalmente manca tutto quello che è stata la parte lavorativa della Moon relativamente alle foto realizzate per le varie campagne pubblicitarie.

This is a great guide to a brilliant but very under represented photographer in the book world. Inspirational stuff! If you want some ideas with your photography this should get you thinking outside the normal genres.

1月25日に注文して、2月12日に届きました。わくわくして手に取った小さな写真集は、なんとたくさんのページが上で繋がっていました。製本時にカットされないまま綴じられていたようで、しかたなく自分でカッターを使って丁寧に上部を切り離さなければなりませんでした。ページによっては少しギザギザになってしまって、悲しくなりました。プレゼントにはお薦めできません。それでも、Sarah Moonの写真の素晴らしさは言うまでもありません。

I recently attended an exhibition in London featuring Sarah Moon's pictures most of those displayed are in this book, It is a nice reminder of her work which is different and interesting.

Love it, and the whole photofile series.