Excellent thoughts-provoking book | Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers

"What, in short, makes a photograph good?" | Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers | Robert Flynn Johnson

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	• Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers Robert Flynn Johnson Thames & Hudson, 2005 - 208 pages average customer review:based on 4 reviews view larger image
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not enigmatic enough

This is a handsomely produced tome with some wonderful pictures. But sorting out images by theme robs the viewer of an element of surprise - the start one gets when discovering an oddly arresting image at a flea market, or tucked away in an old paperback. A more successful collection of such elusive images is Other Pictures, put out by Twin Palms. It is one of my favorite photography books, period; serendipitous, like the best street photography; mysterious; totally unexpected.

Excellent thoughts-provoking book

Not for the fainted-heart though : images can be shocking, but always reflect some kind of humanity. Buy it, share it.

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"What, in short, makes a photograph good?"

The answer to the question posed by William Boyd, who with Robert Flynn Johnson has gathered and commented on this portfolio of fascinating photographs, lies between the covers of this enthralling book. None of the photographers represented herein are known for their artistry: actually they are not known at all and hence the title. But the images in this book touch nearly every human emotion and do so all the more powerfully because their are 'incidental' glimpses at the human condition and the planet earth.

Photographs of the footprints of love, birth, war, death, joy, celebration, fantasy, surrealism, faith - all are here among the 200 odd images that fill these pages. Reading this volume is akin to revisiting childhood (both the good and the evil vantages) or rummaging around trunks of forgotten moments someone captured for posterity on film, moments that can bring chuckles as easily as gasps, memories that are both extremely personal and universally participatory.

But as with all fine photographic volumes, viewing the images is far stronger in impact than lumpy words, especially comments from an isolated observer. Read this book for the personal reasons that initiated these pictures and open your mind to the myriad experiences that constitute life. Grady Harp, January 2004

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Truly amazing

I purchased this book after reading a glowing newspaper article about it and I couldn't be more pleased. Besides being beautiful it is a very thought provoking book with splendid comments by the author.

"Haunting, cryptic photographs?fire the imagination. The images come with no explanation, only speculation, so we are free to let our minds roam wild." ?Miami Herald

The wonderfully diverse images reproduced here include many of transcendent beauty and psychological insight, all with the magical, mysterious charge that comes from speculating on the circumstances in which they were taken. Novelist William Boyd, whose introduction identifies thirteen ways in which to look at photographs, explains: "The anonymous photograph?makes us ask, with new concentration, what it is about a photograph that elevates it above the casual and the banal?why some images move and enthrall and remain in our memories."

The number of collectors of anonymous photographs is growing exponentially. Robert Flynn Johnson has spent more than a decade on a personal journey of discovery through what were previously uncharted waters to find the works reproduced here. Reflecting themes that govern our lives?birth, death, love, war, travel, celebrity?these photographs are pleasurable and poignant, giving insight into the human secrets with which we can all identify. Over 220 illustrations.

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