It’s a world away from the typical landscape, nature, and travel-type photography, but many consider it the ‘important’ photography. So for that, you might consider that it is at least worth a quick look. More on the ‘quick’ look in a second. But first, The American Photography Book 24 has just been released. On the website you can see images that made the book (Selected) and those that made into the running for the book (Chosen) but weren’t Selected, er Chosen; no, Selected. Leave it to the art world to define things with such clarity. I mean, it’s not like they could have used more ambiguous terms like “Finalist” and “Runner-up”.
Now for the “Quick Look”; it isn’t. There are 555 images, on a site that doesn’t offer thumbnails. So you have to page through every photo if you want to see them all. And they don’t load very quickly. I found it best to leave a browser window open, and scroll through 50 images at a time. Then when you come back, you can skip ahead to the number you had previously viewed.
One word of warning: there are some particularly graphic images that will not be suitable for some viewers, including some very disturbing images of Pakistani women that were disfigured by acid.
As usual, there is some great photography, and some which leave me wondering, “Is this meant to be “Art”?
