Accessing Taryn Simon
I bought Taryn Simon’s An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar recently, and I’ve finally gone through it in detail. I like to pay attention (even if it’s after the fact) to my emotional response when I get new photo books, and also to my response as I look at them. When I got this book, I was pleased, but as I read and looked at it, my pleasure slowly turned into respect, and that’s where it stayed.
I don’t know about you, but I think respect is overrated.
Don’t get me wrong—I want to earn people’s respect, and I don’t think it’s a small accomplishment that Ms. Simon has earned the respect of so many. But if that’s all I elicit through my photographs—as it was all she elicited in me—I think I’ll have done something wrong.
I feel about Ms. Simon’s work the same way I feel about Susan Sontag’s writing. Respect, definitely. But that’s the extent of it. I don’t feel anything when I read Sontag, and I don’t feel anything when I look at Simon’s photographs. I think things, but I don’t feel.
Proof: I had Simon’s book for several weeks before I’d finally finished looking at all the photos and reading all the text. I had Mitch Epstein’s Family Business for 48 hours and I’d already read it in close detail, twice. Alec Soth’s NIAGARA, 24 hours. I didn’t want to put those books down.
What’s the difference? Why the connection to Epstein’s work? Or Soth’s? I have as much trouble describing it or defining it as I do describing or defining why I’m attracted to certain people. I just know it when I feel it.
I respect Ms. Simon for her skill, her commitment, her follow-through, her ability to get a camera into some pretty unusual places. But I found that I rarely moved past the question of “How’d she get access to shoot there?” There’s a place for this work, of course. (Justin James Reed has a recent post about Burtynsky, Polidori, and Gursky along these lines.) It just isn’t a place I want to spend much time.
I don’t know about you, but I think respect is overrated.
Don’t get me wrong—I want to earn people’s respect, and I don’t think it’s a small accomplishment that Ms. Simon has earned the respect of so many. But if that’s all I elicit through my photographs—as it was all she elicited in me—I think I’ll have done something wrong.
I feel about Ms. Simon’s work the same way I feel about Susan Sontag’s writing. Respect, definitely. But that’s the extent of it. I don’t feel anything when I read Sontag, and I don’t feel anything when I look at Simon’s photographs. I think things, but I don’t feel.
Copyright © Taryn Simon
Proof: I had Simon’s book for several weeks before I’d finally finished looking at all the photos and reading all the text. I had Mitch Epstein’s Family Business for 48 hours and I’d already read it in close detail, twice. Alec Soth’s NIAGARA, 24 hours. I didn’t want to put those books down.
What’s the difference? Why the connection to Epstein’s work? Or Soth’s? I have as much trouble describing it or defining it as I do describing or defining why I’m attracted to certain people. I just know it when I feel it.
Copyright © Mitch Epstein
I respect Ms. Simon for her skill, her commitment, her follow-through, her ability to get a camera into some pretty unusual places. But I found that I rarely moved past the question of “How’d she get access to shoot there?” There’s a place for this work, of course. (Justin James Reed has a recent post about Burtynsky, Polidori, and Gursky along these lines.) It just isn’t a place I want to spend much time.
Copyright © Alec Soth
Labels: Alec Soth, Andreas Gursky, books, Edward Burtynsky, Justin James Reed, Mitch Epstein, photographers, Robert Polidori, Susan Sontag, Taryn Simon, writers
posted by Liz at 10:25 PM
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