A book a month-Rineke Dijkstra

Omri, Givatti Brigade, Golan Heights, Israel, March 29, 2000

“The young soldier stands on a green plateau; the mountains in the background are bluish. The horizon runs across at his waist, precisely through the middle of the picture. He is posed almost frontally; his figure fills nearly the whole height of the photograph. His eyes look directly into the camera from a a small, mud-spattered, boyish face. The gaze is cautious, and although he stands somewhat higher than the viewer, his appearance does not radiate heroism: his uniform hangs on him, about two sizes too large; his right foot is angled to the side, and his hand hangs seemingly inertly next to the trigger of his riffle, aimed toward the ground.”

A teacher once told me in college that I should buy one art book every month. Since I have graduated I have done this. I have decided to incorporate this into my blog. I have a small collection of the books from the past months but I think I will just start with the book I purchased yesterday and go from there.

The book Portraits by Rineke Dijkstra is her first monograph of images and they are a great collection of her images. I had seen a few of her portraits from the the beach series at the Guggenheim a few months ago. These pictures had caught my eye but I couldn’t find much online about her. I had been waiting to buy her book and it was worth while! The book is a large range of her portraiture work and a lot of stuff I hadn’t seen yet.

A side note: On my way home from not getting into the Girl Talk show (because my ticketfast tickets didn’t work?) I saw a large gathering of people. I went to check it out and I found out that it was One Million Forgotten Moments, info can be found here and here. This was a really weird performance to just walk into. We had no idea what was going on but we stopped and watched for about a half hour. I didn’t really get the full gist of it all but it was a really amazing idea. I love New York.

And one last thing: A warning to all Advertising photographers in NYC. Better not screw up your lighting for a billboard or you will get criticized…publicly.