A second (or is it third?) volume of Moriyama’s photos from northern Japan in the late 1970s was published in June. My main interest in this book was to see a single show from the exhibition had made it into publication, a picture that was missing from it’s sister companion published in 2009.
Northern (1) is horizontally oriented to accommodate the overwhelming selection of well, horizontally oriented pictures. It is printed long and wide, matching the aspect ratio of 35mm film very nicely.
Northern 2 is a collection of vertically oriented pictures and feels more “Moriyama-y” this way. Thankfully both books are not as thick as some of his other ones, allowing for a clearer look at the photographs. The separation of work in these two books is interesting in how elemental is was decided (Up and Down vs Across) but more than that what is even more (unsurprisingly?) satisfying is how no matter how the pictures are set they mesh perfectly as an entire coherent body of work.
I can’t really say if this was the first photo book which I bought for the appearance of a single and particular photograph, but there was a particular image from the Northern exhibition at Rathole in early 2009 which I have been fixated on ever since the first moment I laid eyes on it:
Perhaps falling for a single photo in a collection of Moriyama’s pictures defeats the purpose, and it is quite likely that I have a soft spot for pictures where a woman is centered in the frame with a tree sprouting from her head. Tossing in the whole 1970s Showa thing with her long hair, straight expression and how she has her arms situated there, and BAM you got a fantastic photo.
The large print in the exhibition was framed and in a row with other vertically oriented pictures (in a separate section of the gallery, away from the horizontal ones) and had a price tag of nearly (if I remember correctly) $4000. To me this is just as affordable as if it was priced at four million dollars. So what I was after was a reproduction in book form. And a reproduction was what I got.
Even though I hadn’t seen the actual image in over a year and a half, upon flipping to the page pictured above in the store it was striking to instantly realize just how severely cropped the image is as it appears in the book. You can compare a picture from the exhibition with the page and see how the integrity of the frame (of the print) is lost, the balance of space around the top of the tree, the subtraction of that lovely little white triangle created by the umbrella and her skirt, gone. Even that stain from the gutter is missing its partner. These things are important to me. Looking at the current edition of The Americans versus a vintage copy is a similar experience. The inclusion of more of the frame in the later books add visual information to which was lacking before.
But then again, who is to say which is right? It is very well that Moriyama preferred the crop of this photo to the full print. Or perhaps (and more likely) it was the book designer who made this trimming decision. Earlier I mentioned that Northern (1) was printed to more or less fit the aspect ratio of 35mm film, however Northern 2 is actually a little bit shorter:
So we could have gotten a bit more in there had they printed each book at the same size. Why they didn’t, I would be quite interested to find out.
Admittedly, whining on a blog about the missing millimeter or so from a particular frame of film shot by a prolific photographer almost 35 years ago is not the best way to spend a summer morning.
Would I have responded as positively to the image if I hadn’t seen the print and known what it looks like printed full frame? I’d probably have this mega-crush on her either way so maybe the answer is yes. On strictly formal and aesthetically personal tastes, I’d sure prefer the actual print (If you want to hook me up with four grand oh man I will totally set up a paypal account for this).
But if anything it is a reminder that as viewers of art we have to take what we see as what we see. That is, even though the print showed one thing, and the book the same thing (ever so) slightly different, that is just how it works. The print is NOT the book, and the picture in the book isn’t that actual print. And to further compound the issue, neither manifestations of that image are actually that woman or that point in time at that point in space. They (and by extension the pictures I posted here of those images) each exist as separate and distinct objects in this world.
Remember, if the nature of photography and reproduction was easy to comprehend the entire enterprise would be soon become utterly boring. Thankfully it is anything but.
