My photographic education continues: a copy of On Looking at Photographs – A Practical Guide, David Hurn/Magnum in conversation with Bill Jay (Lenswork 2000), has arrived from St Louis. In the introduction they say: ‘Its purpose is to suggest how to look at photographs, how to understand them, how to think about them, and, as a result, how to use photography more effectively in your daily life.’ It’s a slim volume with no illustrations, so it will be words, not pictures, which will be doing the teaching in this case (and quite different from Szarkowski’s Looking at Photographs). And expensive words too, at around 70p a page – a reflection of the regard in which Bill Jay, who died in 2009, is held and the demand for his books. The advantages and disadvantages of being dead – your work increases in value and you can’t benefit from it!
Photo: Cover On Looking at Photographs – A Practical Guide