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loujoseph's review against another edition
3.0
a kind of interesting but in the end boring rewrite of the history of photography, by tropes instead of the usual way. well written but i don't need to read this again.
unfoldingdrama's review against another edition
4.0
This is a narrative of the history of photography, but told through associations that Dyer sees in images created by its more famous practitioners. Really it is an argument for the intertextuality of images told through the ways that photographers cite and communicate with each other through their work, perhaps indeliberately at times, through recurring motifs.
The text itself is really a single long, roughly chronological essay, punctuated with images, yet it is also more than that as is at time conversational, philosophical and biographical. Throughout, Dyer does his own intertextual work drawing on a range of poets, authors and artists to illustrate his arguments, including Whitman, Borges, Barthes, Didion, DeLillo, Calvino, Hopper, Pessoa, Larkin, Baudrillard and Sontag.
I found its intelligence and humour utterly compelling, which was a surprise as I initially intended to read it in small bursts expecting it to be dryer and more methodical. My only complaint is that it is pretty American-centric it its photographic focus and reading it you would think the only non-Americans to make major developmental contributions to photography were the French trio of Cartier-Bresson, Atget and Brassaï. Otherwise excellent.
The text itself is really a single long, roughly chronological essay, punctuated with images, yet it is also more than that as is at time conversational, philosophical and biographical. Throughout, Dyer does his own intertextual work drawing on a range of poets, authors and artists to illustrate his arguments, including Whitman, Borges, Barthes, Didion, DeLillo, Calvino, Hopper, Pessoa, Larkin, Baudrillard and Sontag.
I found its intelligence and humour utterly compelling, which was a surprise as I initially intended to read it in small bursts expecting it to be dryer and more methodical. My only complaint is that it is pretty American-centric it its photographic focus and reading it you would think the only non-Americans to make major developmental contributions to photography were the French trio of Cartier-Bresson, Atget and Brassaï. Otherwise excellent.
ericfheiman's review against another edition
4.0
An interesting history and analysis of 20th century photography that revels in its anti traditional art history point of view in favor of intuitive connections between photographs that butt up against the photographers' personal histories. Fascinating.
jwsg's review against another edition
2.0
I once attended an event where Dyer read excerpts from his latest book, Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush. Dyer was entertaining in a self-depracating way and his writing, based on the excerpts he read, lyrical. I'd never read Dyer before but at that moment, I wanted to. A successful reading, in other words.
Reading The Ongoing Moment, in many ways, reminded me of being in my Visual Arts (Photography) class in college. There were times when I felt like I was learning to look at the world in a whole different way, to appreciate patterns, forms, details that I had previously not noticed. There were other times when I felt that perhaps we were trying to read too much into what was a fairly straightforward, regular image. Take, for instance, this excerpt:
"Take [Dorothea] Lange's photo of a sheriff [rocking on a chair]....Thus it comes about that the sheriff is preoccupied less by fine points of the law than by a fine point of balance. It's a seat of teh pants job from which all suspense has been removed - except that expressed by the chair's precariousness. There are crimes and felonies to be investigated but, from the sheriff's point of view, the only law that counts is gravity."
Or Dyer's meditations on Andre Kertesz's images of solitary walkers:
" In John Boorman's film 'The Emerald Forest', one of the Amazonian Indians takes a psychotropic drug that releases his bird or animal spirti. While he lies zonked out in his hut his puma- or condor-self soars and speeds off into the jungle and sky of the spirit world. I often find myself thinking of Kertesz in terms similar to - if far less spectacular than - this. From behind his camera the photographer watches his surrogate walk out into the material world....There is nothing sinister about this figure...No, this mean is just a stroller, like a clerk without the day job, someone whose main aim is to kill time, of which there is always too much on his hands. He is one of those men who like to look at construction sites, the gaping holes in the earth which will form the foundations of a skyscraper or a multi-storey car park. This is the nearest he gets to the great outdoors, the sublime. His coat is sufficiently cosy for the city to become an interior, a living room through which he shuffles."
Are we trying to imbue deeper meaning into some of these images when, in fact, it's just an image, not an allegory,not a symbol for something more complex?
The best bit for me was when Dyer steered clear of (what I felt was) overreading and overanalysing images and wrote about the photographers who created the images, their lives and influences, their philosophy on photography - photographers like Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz. Dyer gives an especially detailed treatment of Stieglitz's life and trajectory as a photographer - his relationship with artist Georgia O'Keefe, his friendship with Paul Strand, his use of Strand's wife Rebecca, as a muse.
Unfortunately, these bits were relatively few and far between. Dyer does have some lovely turns of phrase but the subject, and how he approached it, didn't appeal to me.
Reading The Ongoing Moment, in many ways, reminded me of being in my Visual Arts (Photography) class in college. There were times when I felt like I was learning to look at the world in a whole different way, to appreciate patterns, forms, details that I had previously not noticed. There were other times when I felt that perhaps we were trying to read too much into what was a fairly straightforward, regular image. Take, for instance, this excerpt:
"Take [Dorothea] Lange's photo of a sheriff [rocking on a chair]....Thus it comes about that the sheriff is preoccupied less by fine points of the law than by a fine point of balance. It's a seat of teh pants job from which all suspense has been removed - except that expressed by the chair's precariousness. There are crimes and felonies to be investigated but, from the sheriff's point of view, the only law that counts is gravity."
Or Dyer's meditations on Andre Kertesz's images of solitary walkers:
" In John Boorman's film 'The Emerald Forest', one of the Amazonian Indians takes a psychotropic drug that releases his bird or animal spirti. While he lies zonked out in his hut his puma- or condor-self soars and speeds off into the jungle and sky of the spirit world. I often find myself thinking of Kertesz in terms similar to - if far less spectacular than - this. From behind his camera the photographer watches his surrogate walk out into the material world....There is nothing sinister about this figure...No, this mean is just a stroller, like a clerk without the day job, someone whose main aim is to kill time, of which there is always too much on his hands. He is one of those men who like to look at construction sites, the gaping holes in the earth which will form the foundations of a skyscraper or a multi-storey car park. This is the nearest he gets to the great outdoors, the sublime. His coat is sufficiently cosy for the city to become an interior, a living room through which he shuffles."
Are we trying to imbue deeper meaning into some of these images when, in fact, it's just an image, not an allegory,not a symbol for something more complex?
The best bit for me was when Dyer steered clear of (what I felt was) overreading and overanalysing images and wrote about the photographers who created the images, their lives and influences, their philosophy on photography - photographers like Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz. Dyer gives an especially detailed treatment of Stieglitz's life and trajectory as a photographer - his relationship with artist Georgia O'Keefe, his friendship with Paul Strand, his use of Strand's wife Rebecca, as a muse.
Unfortunately, these bits were relatively few and far between. Dyer does have some lovely turns of phrase but the subject, and how he approached it, didn't appeal to me.
hamsaehsan's review against another edition
dnf @ 16%
I did enjoy as much as i read it but doesn’t seem like I’ll continue this anytime soon so
I did enjoy as much as i read it but doesn’t seem like I’ll continue this anytime soon so
cweiland's review against another edition
5.0
This book provides a compelling trip through the history of American photography that is based on thematic connection instead of strict chronology. Instead of a series of chapters, the book flows seamlessly through a series of thematic hand-offs. More than simply providing a photographic history lesson and an approach to reading a photograph and its context, "The Ongoing Moment" has given me a new perspective on my own photography and has compelled me to expand how I approach my favorite hobby.
solidsilken's review against another edition
lighthearted
reflective
slow-paced
2.75
It neither gives insight into photography nor much enjoyment from Dyer's obvious pleasure at this own pithy thoughts. Did not enjoy.
jimmylorunning's review against another edition
4.0
A poetic meditation on photography that serves also as a history of photographic themes and concerns as well as of America itself (the depression, modernization, transportation etc). My feeling is that if you are a really serious photographer, with your mind already made up about the medium, then you will not like this book, as it doesn't approach photography from either the viewpoint of the academic nor of the practitioner (Dyer doesn't even own a camera). He approaches it as a writer, pure and simple, and what he writes about is as much about himself as it is about photography. Which is exactly his point about photographers: they often approach the same subject (hats, barber shops, backs, benches) but the photos are often more about the photographer who took them than the actual subject matter at hand.
In this way, Geoff Dyer's meditation is personal, quirky; he is attracted to those things that catches his eye on a whim, makes him want to write more about. One of the things that catches his eye are photos taken by one photographer that resemble the work of another. This gets at the heart of the identity of the artist versus his subject matter as well as the ongoing tradition that is built up between generations. Much like in writing, in photography there are also allusions, references, what-have-you, so that a photo can transcend its immediate subject by embracing, commenting on, or rejecting previous photographs on the subject, establishing a conversation across time/moments.
Surely Dyer is aware of these same concerns in his own medium (writing); the book is peppered with quotes and references to writers before him, be they directly related to the subject of photography (Sontag, Barthes, Berger, Benjamin) or not: people he cannot not allude to because they are in the very DNA of his writing (DH Lawrence, Rilke, Whitman, Didion, Borges). This melding of influences creates a very personal style that is the antithesis of academic writing. Oddly enough it reminds me not of a specific writer-ly tradition (though a case can be made) but more of a direct lineage of those great personal documentary films by Agnes Vardas, or of Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, with a dash of Herzog thrown in as well. Perhaps this feeling is only enhanced by the fact that this is such a visual book, you must follow his arguments by examining the photos as well as the words.
As a non-photographer... and even as someone who wasn't that interested in photography, this book really drew me in. I delighted to see them through Dyer's eyes. The background information about each photographer, the drama too, and the fact that we get to follow them through different thematic threads, deepens the appreciation of any one photo beyond its frame, so that I began to see each one as a piece of a continuous web, a meeting place between disparate views.
But I didn't always see eye to eye with him; there were some points he made that I didn't see at all, though we were looking at the same thing. His argument (and Winogrand's argument) that Robert Frank's photo of the SAVE GAS photo was one that baffled me:
Here I see so much going on. The gas pumps look otherworldly, like aliens that have landed on a barren landscape, looking for earth's leader. It's fascinating. What's more, the SAVE GAS sign looks like the ribbon stretched across the finish line in a race, as if these pumps were jockeying for position to cross the line. What's not fascinating about it? What I wanted was an explanation for why Winogrand didn't see the potential in this as a photograph.
Oddly enough, I thought some of the other photos discussed to have much less potential, photos of the open road, for example, stretching into the distance.
In other places, Dyer tries to make so many connections, tries to draw everything together into one interconnected photograph that I felt like he was stretching it a bit. He takes too big of leaps in some ways, but in other ways he succeeds. And always he writes beautifully, alternating between fact driven biography, poetic prose, down and dirty analysis, and playful turn-of-phrase humor.
One complaint: many of the photos discussed were not included (like the Frank photo above) or were reproduced so tiny that I could barely make out the details. Needless to say, the internet was an important resource
In this way, Geoff Dyer's meditation is personal, quirky; he is attracted to those things that catches his eye on a whim, makes him want to write more about. One of the things that catches his eye are photos taken by one photographer that resemble the work of another. This gets at the heart of the identity of the artist versus his subject matter as well as the ongoing tradition that is built up between generations. Much like in writing, in photography there are also allusions, references, what-have-you, so that a photo can transcend its immediate subject by embracing, commenting on, or rejecting previous photographs on the subject, establishing a conversation across time/moments.
Surely Dyer is aware of these same concerns in his own medium (writing); the book is peppered with quotes and references to writers before him, be they directly related to the subject of photography (Sontag, Barthes, Berger, Benjamin) or not: people he cannot not allude to because they are in the very DNA of his writing (DH Lawrence, Rilke, Whitman, Didion, Borges). This melding of influences creates a very personal style that is the antithesis of academic writing. Oddly enough it reminds me not of a specific writer-ly tradition (though a case can be made) but more of a direct lineage of those great personal documentary films by Agnes Vardas, or of Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, with a dash of Herzog thrown in as well. Perhaps this feeling is only enhanced by the fact that this is such a visual book, you must follow his arguments by examining the photos as well as the words.
As a non-photographer... and even as someone who wasn't that interested in photography, this book really drew me in. I delighted to see them through Dyer's eyes. The background information about each photographer, the drama too, and the fact that we get to follow them through different thematic threads, deepens the appreciation of any one photo beyond its frame, so that I began to see each one as a piece of a continuous web, a meeting place between disparate views.
But I didn't always see eye to eye with him; there were some points he made that I didn't see at all, though we were looking at the same thing. His argument (and Winogrand's argument) that Robert Frank's photo of the SAVE GAS photo was one that baffled me:
Looming over the pumps is a sign with the letters S A V E illuminated and the intervening ones--G A S--barely visible. That's all there is, but, for Winogrand, the fact that it's 'a photograph of nothing', that 'the subject has no dramatic ability of its own whatsoever', makes it 'one of the most important pictures in the book'. What amazed Winogrand was that Frank could even conceive of that being a photograph in the first place'. [...] The important thing is "the photographer's understanding of possibilities ... When he took that photograph, he couldn't possibly know -- he just could not know that it would work, that it would be a photograph. He knew he probably had a chance. In other words, he cannot know what that's going to look like as a photograph. I mean, understanding fully that he's going to render what he sees, he still does not know what it's going to look like as a photograph. Something, the fact of photographing something changes..." Winogrand lost his way again but then came back with an irrefutable declaration of intent: "I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed."The conclusion he arrived at was very poetic, I'll admit. But looking at the actual Robert Frank photo (which wasn't included by the way), I just couldn't see the "nothing" that he was talking about:
Here I see so much going on. The gas pumps look otherworldly, like aliens that have landed on a barren landscape, looking for earth's leader. It's fascinating. What's more, the SAVE GAS sign looks like the ribbon stretched across the finish line in a race, as if these pumps were jockeying for position to cross the line. What's not fascinating about it? What I wanted was an explanation for why Winogrand didn't see the potential in this as a photograph.
Oddly enough, I thought some of the other photos discussed to have much less potential, photos of the open road, for example, stretching into the distance.
In other places, Dyer tries to make so many connections, tries to draw everything together into one interconnected photograph that I felt like he was stretching it a bit. He takes too big of leaps in some ways, but in other ways he succeeds. And always he writes beautifully, alternating between fact driven biography, poetic prose, down and dirty analysis, and playful turn-of-phrase humor.
One complaint: many of the photos discussed were not included (like the Frank photo above) or were reproduced so tiny that I could barely make out the details. Needless to say, the internet was an important resource