The ongoing moment / Geoff Dyer.
Publisher: New York : Vintage, 2007Description: xii, 285 p., [8] p. of plates ill. (some col.), ports.; 21 cm001: 13799ISBN: 1400031680; 9781400031689Subject(s): Photography -- History | Photography -- Themes, motivesDDC classification: 770.1 DYEItem type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 770.1 DYE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 089079 | |||
Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 770.1 DYE (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 088954 |
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Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Great photographs change the way we see the world; The Ongoing Moment changes the way we look at both.
Focusing on the ways in which canonical figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, André Kertész, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus, and William Eggleston have photographed the same things--barber shops, benches, hands, roads, signs--award-winning writer Geoff Dyer seeks to identify their signature styles. In doing so, he constructs a narrative in which these photographers--many of whom never met--constantly encounter one another. The result is a kaleidoscopic work of extraordinary originality and insight.
Originally published: London: Little, Brown, 2005.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- List of Illustrations (p. ix)
- The Ongoing Moment (p. 1)
- Notes (p. 257)
- Select Bibliography (p. 271)
- Chronological List of Photographers (p. 277)
- Acknowledgements (p. 279)
- Index of Names (p. 281)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
British novelist Dyer's first book on photography is an inspired, highly personal look at the medium. As a self-proclaimed nonphotographer who does not even own a camera, Dyer effortlessly blends and connects a range of ideas from the worlds of literature, philosophy, history, and the fine arts. Rich with associations and unique connections, his highly readable style is refreshingly idiosyncratic. The novelist does not limit himself to traditional categories of photo criticism. Dyer's intellectual stream of consciousness flows seamlessly through examples of such varied subjects as hats, park benches, doorways, and the blind through discussions of such varied writers and photographers as Robert Frank, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Diane Arbus, John Cheever, Emily Bront?, Francesca Woodman, Walker Evans, and William Wordsworth. Highly recommended.-Shauna Frischkorn, Millersville Univ., PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
Having already tackled jazz (But Beautiful) and D.H. Lawrence (Out of Sheer Rage), cultural critic Dyer now turns his intelligent and discriminating eye to photography. Essentially a fast-moving series of highly focused "close readings," his volume zeros in on the way "certain photographs serve as nodes, places where subjects initially considered distinct converge and merge." Thus Paul Strand's "Blind Woman, New York, 1916" leads Dyer not only to other photographs of the blind by Lewis Hine and Gary Winogrand, but also to a survey of different portraits of blind author Jorge Luis Borges and to a consideration of Walker Evans's SX-70 photographs. Like the great English critic John Berger (Ways of Seeing), whom Dyer wrote about in Ways of Telling, the author has a lively and dramatic sense of provocation. He declares, for instance, that William Eggleston's photographs look "like they were taken by a Martian who lost the ticket for his flight home and ended up working at a gun shop in a small town near Memphis." He also has a loose-limbed and mostly surefooted ability to balance a number of elements into a functioning whole. In an overcrowded field, Dyer's book is distinguished by an idiosyncratic and infectious enthusiasm. 8 pages color illus. not seen by PW. (Oct. 4) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reservedBooklist Review
Dyer continues to practice what he terms imaginative criticism. In earlier works, he's written about literature and jazz. Here he takes what he calls an aleatory approach to photography, creating, as a skilled jazz improviser does, a revealing and affecting array of linked patterns. Collaging poetry and swatches of biography of the American photographers under discussion into his idiosyncratic interpretations of a great spectrum of powerful photographs, Dyer susses out piquant and nuanced images. He begins with a provocative analysis of photographs of blind people taken by the photographers who become his touchstones: Walker Evans, Paul Strand, Garry Winogrand, and Andre Kertesz. He lingers over night photographs; photographs of hands, which leads to a prickly consideration of Stieglitz's photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe; Edward Weston's nudes; Dorothea Lange's and Roy DeCarava's photographs of people's backs; and photographs of hats, steps, doorways, and, finally, death. This is criticism at its most scintillating as Dyer succeeds in freshly articulating the precise nature of photography's allure, including the medium's paradoxical ability to focus on the specific yet encompass the universal. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2005 BooklistThere are no comments on this title.