A blog by Oliver Marchant: photographer, delighter in the surreal.
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be careful with that hammer bernard
be careful with that hammer bernard
“In that sarcophagus was the casket of lead and silver, and in the casket of lead and silver was the queen, the dear immortal cause of all this beauty. But now that sarcophagus seemed no more than a little dark oblong that lay incongruously in the great vista of the Pear of Love. It was as if someone had dropped a small valise upon the crystal sea of heaven.”
— The Pearl of Love by H.G Wells.
A review of ‘Far Cry’ by Paulo Nozolino
Darkness. Thick, grained darkness runs throughout this book, a physical darkness in the photos but also a deep darkness in theme.
In ‘Far Cry’ (his second book) Nozolino presents us with a uniquely personal approach to documentary photography. The photos are highly atmospheric, covering: conflict, the damage that conflict causes, sex, landscape, and family. However classifying this book by subject matter feels to be too much of a generalization. He photographs around the story, not literally but also not obscurely. From the photos it is hard to know where we are, as the location moves around from Auschwitz to Sarajevo and numerous other places, most notably in the Arab world.
The scenes feel like memories; they have a contemplative feeling that brings a disconcerting atmosphere that runs throughout the book. Death is always present, even the cases where it is not directly referenced. The most affecting of the photos is a portrait of a dead child in the Sarajevo morgue; no injury is shown as he is mostly shrouded in a sheet, he looks calm and peaceful; he could be mistaken for being asleep but for the identification card clipped to the sheet. Elsewhere in the book there are photos of wrapped up bodies in various morgues but this is one of few where the identity is shown. The themes here are made all the more powerful because of this selectivity. We are not desensitized to death or violence as you can become when looking through James Nachtwey’s ‘Inferno’ for example. While Nachtwey presents a valuable if not terrible document of history, ‘Far Cry’ feels more like a sample of atmosphere.
I mentioned that there is a lot of darkness in the photos, while this works in most of them, some feel overprinted and are ruined because of it. I feel like we would be better able to appreciate the light in some of these because of the dark of the others, but he strives for dark in all most all of them, even if it is not overly present in the scene.
At the end of the book is the piece: ‘Crying is a Place Ever Uncertain’ by Rui Nunes. It acts as a kind of poetic index, directly referencing Nozolino’s photographs. While I think this work, being highly atmospheric, is a perfect candidate for a poetic accompaniment. I feel that the photographs are powerful enough to stand on their own without this auxiliary poetic description. The work attempts to stand separate from the photographs while also being directly, descriptively linked to them. It seems to cheapen them, to preconceive your feelings about the work, when really it should be adding to atmosphere created by the photographs.
Nozolino has created a body of work, which is masterfully beautiful, personal, emotive and atmospheric.
‘Far Cry’ by Paulo Nozolino with texts by Rui Nunes and Ulrich Loock is published by Steidl 2005
Find this book and others by Paulo Nozolino on the Steidl website here
For more about Nozolino see this article on Wayneford’s Posterous here.
“It should be an adventure in seeing.”
— Garry Winogrand on the photographic process.
