Photo-eye description: "Paul Graham's first book, self-published in 1983, documents The Great North Road that runs the length of England 400 miles from London to Edinburgh. The route has been in use since Roman times and was once the busiest motorway in the country with an active roadside economy of shops, cafes, hotels. In the 1950s it was supplanted by the newly constructed M1 a speedier and smoother motorway for an England moving slickly into a modernity of effeciency and consumerism. Along the A1, the business and people were left to decline into grimy obscurity. Graham's subdued color photos are a mournful document of a grey nowhere land in a country moving too fast to stop for a cup of tea. Photographed with a large format camera 1981 to 1982"
British photographer Paul Graham is dealing with conceptual photography for about 30 years, looking at the streets of the world stories about human relationships, emptiness, loneliness and quiet. You can view his best shots of his career hung in the form of a retrospective exhibition in one of the most influential galleries of London - Whitechapel Gallery.
"My principal sources were Chekhov’s short stories, and the critical essays around those. A lot of people have tried to understand why this writing works so well, since in the stories there’s not much happening. They’re dealing with the simple, everyday things—in one of them a woman is combing her hair for six pages, remembering that night at the theatre; in another a school teacher is coming home in a cart dreaming of meeting the landowner, who does ride past and they exchange a few pleasantries, but nothing more. But there’s something magical about how perfectly described they are, the transparency of what’s happening, without guff or show, simply described, with nothing proscribed."
Paul Graham's Exhibition will run in Whitechapel Gallery from 20 April- 19 June so don't miss it )))
Reading :
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/07/theory-paul-graham-photography-is-easy.html
http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/09/paul-grahams-chekhov.html
http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/a1.html#a
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/paul-graham-photographs-1981-2006
"My principal sources were Chekhov’s short stories, and the critical essays around those. A lot of people have tried to understand why this writing works so well, since in the stories there’s not much happening. They’re dealing with the simple, everyday things—in one of them a woman is combing her hair for six pages, remembering that night at the theatre; in another a school teacher is coming home in a cart dreaming of meeting the landowner, who does ride past and they exchange a few pleasantries, but nothing more. But there’s something magical about how perfectly described they are, the transparency of what’s happening, without guff or show, simply described, with nothing proscribed."
Reading :
http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/07/theory-paul-graham-photography-is-easy.html
http://photo-muse.blogspot.com/2007/09/paul-grahams-chekhov.html
http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/a1.html#a
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/paul-graham-photographs-1981-2006
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