Tuesday, October 30, 2007



A SHORT HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Harvey Benge


Auckland and Paris based photographer Harvey Benge will be in London this week to launch his new book A Short History of Photography at the Photographers Gallery on Thursday night.


British photography crtitic Gerry Badger writes in the forward to the book,

" Harvey Benge´s work here is a meditation on photographic style. While looking through his contact sheets, he noticed pictures that reminded him of a 'Friedlander', or whatever, while another image reminded him of someone else.All photograpers do this, and if the photograph in question apes another photographer too closely, it´s usually a case for rejection. But Benge did the opposite.

Picking out his 'Friedlander' of 'Parr' and 'Baltz' he decided to make an 'anthology' of contemporary photography featuring some of its biggest names. Of course they are all genuine Benges. And it is important that they are all good pictures, and not mere pastiches of the 'originals' of which they gently and insistently remind one. This may be a game, but games can be very serious, and this is both a serious and light-hearted exploratiooin of photographic style."

A Short History of Photography will be launched in New Zealand in April of next year as a co-editon with Random House.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Why does it take so long for books to come out in NZ? Harvey's book is already discounted on Amazon UK. The world is a much smaller place these days and we shouldn't be lagging so far behind in NZ. I'll order it from the UK and have it in time to give at Christmas. I'd love to support a local bookstore instead but I'm not waiting until April to get this one.