Following is the “critique” about “The Color of Light” my heart felt I needed to share with others on Facebook.
As I told you, I selected a good moment to open the book and browse through it several times during a couple of days. It is still lying on a shelf underneath a glass top table in my living room, where it is both decorative and makes me pull it out to enjoy again and again.
Session A:
“The Color of Light”
In Icelandic the word “critique” means “constructive review”. However it is no less misused than probably the English word where a critique says often more about the person who writes it than he who is being written about. This I have taught my students for decades. Here I will try to keep to the “real” Icelandic meaning.This is my first of two critiques I wanted to write about Arthur’s Meyerson book The Color of Light.
Looking at the book on the table in my living room, it is beautiful. The image on the cover and the whole design of the cover makes it a great book to have lying around in one’s home.
The next step is handling the book and browsing it. The first thing I notice is the quality of the paper and the binding of the book. It feels great. The second feeling I get when browsing it is the pure elegant layout and design of the book. How the images are organized not in time but in a beautiful flow. Sometimes one image on a spread, sometimes two images that match perfectly.
The layout and the design of the text are elegant. The image text is small, perfectly situated at the bottom of each pages to minimize it disturbing the view of the image. Just the name of the image, the location and the year.
The first pages with only images before any text gives immediately the feeling of a refined, exquisite layout. I congratulate Lowell Williams for his brilliant design work.
My second critique session will be about Arthur’s work. It will be hard to keep it short enough to relay my feelings about his work. But now I have committed myself to write the second part, I need time.
Session B:
A few days back I wrote here on Facebook my earlier “critique” about Arthur Meyerson’s book, The Color of Light.
Now it is time for the latter “critique” and that is the deeper end of the pool. About Arthur’s photography; for such critique to have meaning, it needs to be a bit like Arthur’s images. No bullshit… just pure, simple and honest.
Arthur looks and he sees. He is always looking and seeing. He sees moments of light reflecting from subjects. He looks above, below, to the sides. He sees light and color, frames it and captures it.
Sitting at a restaurant on 17th floor in Reykjavik, Iceland with the evening sun shining, having dinner and chatting with friends, Arthur stands up and walks away to take an image. He saw the color of light shining through a colored panel. Great framing of colors and light.
Arthur sees and he knows that it is the answer to great photography. To see or not to see – that is the answer. Arthur has answered it with his book The Color of Light in such a way that he has put his mark even deeper on photographic history.
Einar Erlendsson is the director of the Focus On Nature Workshops where I teach in Iceland. These reviews were initially posted on Facebook and with his permission I have posted here.