Pixelated

Considering that my house is cluttered with thousands of books you may be surprised to learn, as I was when I checked a few minutes ago, that only three of them are photography books.

One is a huge whopper called Self, Life, Death which serves as a retrospective of the career of Nobuyoshi Araki. I don't take it down from the shelf very often but when I do I tend to lose an hour or two within its pages.

Another is a dinky little collection, Tokyo Love Hello, by Chris Steele-Perkins. Full of candid shots from in and around Japan's capital, the kids seem to like it for some reason.

And the other is a collection of Flaming Lips tour photographs with the wonderful title Waking Up With A Placebo Headwound.

But that is it.

I suppose the explanation is that you can't read a photography book and the reason I have so many books is that I love reading. Looking at a book and reading it are two different things. I can enjoy the former, but I prefer the latter. Which makes reviewing a new book of photographs quite tricky, but that is what I shall attempt to do.

Finding himself in a small Florida museum surrounded by bizarre objects Joel Grey had the urge to photograph them but was without his trusty Nikon Nikkormat so he turned instead to the camera on his mobile phone. Despite a mere 1.3 megapixel lens and complete lack of viewfinder he was surprised to discover that he ended up with a curious and appealing array of shots, many of which are collected in 1.3: Images From My Phone, his third volume of photographs.

The immediacy and apparent limitations of a mobile phone camera are all part of the appeal of this collection. There is some odd, quirky framing and I often got the feeling that I was only being offered glimpses of fragments of the whole. At other times the images were stunningly complete and vibrant, worthy of more expensive equipment and lavish production techniques.

  

  

I really enjoyed these pictures and have subsequently checked out more of Grey's work at his photography website. He describes himself as an award-winning actor in his spare time. I guess that is technically accurate, although it perhaps underplays the Oscar he received for Cabaret and over 60 movie and television roles on top of numerous stage credits.

1.3: Images From My Phone is published in the US by powerHouse Books. You can buy it direct from their website or from Amazon.com. UK publication isn't until November but in this day and age that shouldn't stop you getting hold of a copy.

Comments

[Tom Reynolds]

Remind me to one day show you Warren Ellis's - Available Light, which was shot with his mobile phone camera in the heady days of 2002...

Similar sort of concept except each entry also had a short story or essay with it.

(I only own two art books, that and 'The art of Star Wars')