BOOK REVIEW: to photograph is to learn how to die
by Tim Carpenter
In appearances is a small book, its 4.5x6.5 inches, it is small, but then it took me a
long time to read, at first it was hard to get into his rhythm, he’s writing is concise
and rich and full of digressions, there are three colors of fonts, one in black for his
own writings, another one in blue for his clarifications of his own writings (these are
the first digressions) and three in orange where you’ll find other voices, essential
quotes from other writers. You can read them separately or as a single thread. In
this it reminds us of Hopscotch by Cortazar. Then the reading is like nothing else,
even though for anyone interested in writings about photography probably you will
revisit known places, quotes from Szarkowski, Adams, Morris, Baltz, White and
Papageorge are found throughout the whole book with the significant omission of
Susan Sontag but with the significant addition of Virginia Woolf, he coincides with
Adams in recognizing in the voice of the fame novelist and poet a vision akin to
photographers and the qualities of observation. Maybe the most quoted writer is
the poet Wallace Stevens, a true find for me and a gift Carpenter gives us in his
interpretations of Steven’s words.
The book makes a case for photography practitioners, and for photography, which
could be a tool of connection between the self and the not self, between the
individual and his life and maybe for others, the one’s that witness that
photography, may connect with the maker of them and life as well. In a way he
celebrates existence through meaningful image making without evading the
hardships of anyone’s existence, the ache and joy of breathing. And one could also
imply from the text, in the way he writes and the way he quotes with such
precision, from Springsteen to Sufjan Stevens, from Dickinson to Kandinsky, that is
a celebration for readers, the ones I would like to call the in-takers, the other side of
the makers, that millennial long dialogue of creativity.
Then I forgot to tell you the other reason why it took me so long to read it, it
happens to me from time to time. In my country in some places there is a custom
when someone dies to prolong its presence between the living and its absence
between the dead, is called “Bailar el Muerto” to dance the dead. Let me describe
it vaguely: the closest relatives and friends carry the coffin of its kin from the house
of mourning to the cemetery, dancing two steps forwards and one step back. In
learning how to die with this book I danced its death, two pages forward and one
page back, wanting for it, to never end. When I finally read it and got to its last
page I want it to recommend it to many, not only to photographers but to friends
that I know are more than sensible to the acts of making. This book is a must for
more than a few.
