HCB riddle

[Philippe-Georges]

Exactly. Blank pages are rest areas used aesthetically. And the book design has work brilliently in this case if someone is still thinking about them 4 decades later. Very successful!

Great photographic books are not catalogs, but works of art themselves.

exactly!

 

[jtk]

exactly!

I'm thinking of the current Taschen version of Stieglitz's "Camera Work." Taschen's design/commitment/values are outstanding.

 

[gone]

The continuity of the images should be pleasing for the eye.

Seeing as there is apparently no continuity......

Lea could sell an icebox to an Eskimo.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

On several occasions, I had that kind of discussion with some publishers and graphic designers while co-working at the 'conception' of the books for which I 'committed' the photography.
I sometimes had to 'fight' for inserting a white page in between the sequence, as to have resting point, just like a comma or a semicolon in a text.
I wanted to slow down, or insert a hold in, the flow of images in a book. It's not always good to overflow the reader/viewer with a rushing river of images.
Images are, like text, a line of messages, communication, storytelling; and sometimes a 'blanc' can accentuate the contents.
A blanc can also support a switch in that content, a passage from one one phrase to an other, photography is a (written-) language too....

It was rather exceptional to find a graphic designer who could understand that, and even more a publisher who wanted to 'waste' on white pages.

I always saw a (photo-)book as "un long fleuve tranquille", which gently drew the reader in to the message, by taking him/her by the hand and leading through the woods of images...

But every time I could push through my vision on 'directing the flow of images', at the end, they had to admit is was "not bad" to control the current...

I felt the same 'opposition' when I wanted to present a small image on a large (white-)page, this works as accentuation, like inserting a word written capitals in the middle of a sentence, or underlining it.

White, in the sense of emptiness, in a book, is as important, or even more, as a full page, by far!
BTW, in my eyes, a full page feels like a slam in the face, which I profoundly dislike, but ofcourse this is a very personal vision...

 

[snusmumriken]

Blank pages are rest areas used aesthetically. And the book design has work brilliently in this case if someone is still thinking about them 4 decades later. Very successful!

I reckon HCB would be tickled pink to know that he set up something meaningless that still puzzles some goof 40 years later. IIRC, besides the surrealist connections, HCB was a fan of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. (As am I.)

Thanks for this. Has one of the best description of the oft-misunderstood "Decisive moment": "...the irrational unconscious making itself known in the split second that a photograph is taken."

People don't realize, or plain don't know, how close HCB was to the Surrealists.

It is fairly obvious from his own choice of photographs, but yes, this is an important aspect.

Lea could sell an icebox to an Eskimo

Exactly so

Images are, like text, a line of messages, communication, storytelling; and sometimes a 'blanc' can accentuate the contents.

I do get that, and I admire the layout designer’s art - but in this case I don’t see the point. Why not divide the photos into sections of equal length, which might have had had some advantage when the paper was cut and bound?

Incidentally, when I was a schoolboy, I borrowed ‘Images à la sauvette’ from our local library. Genuine first edition, I should never have taken it back. It was really badly laid out with what we now recognise as great photos bled into the crease or across the pages. The cover design by Matisse was jolly but completely incongruous. But hey, it was all quite surreal.