C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Sun, 26 Nov 2006 18:05:14 -0300 (CLST)

Saw an exhibition of this guy's photos today at Bellas Artes.  Very
impressive.  I think I have criticised him in the past for trying to ape
renaissance paintings, but in retrospect that was probably uninformed
rubbish on my part.  The photos really were very good - they included the
`Kabul' works from the website, but look much better printed to a larger
scale.  Common themes included an emphasis on the way light is distributed
(that sounds stupid, or obvious, for a photographer, but I don't know how
else to describe it) and compositions with strong diagonal elements.

There was also a quasi-mosaic of small (4x6?) portraits - head shots,
direct, maybe a hundred or so.  At the time I didn't pay them as much
attention as the larger scenes, but in retrospect I wonder whether the
humanity shown there made me less critical of the staged(*) / cliched
aspects of his work.  Again I am not sure if I am talking rubbish - the
photographs are so good, but often in a very traditional way (the "zing"
of the white clothing of the man hanging from the goalpost crossbar
against the uniform brown backgrounds; the shaft of light coming down in
the room with the older men; the series of isolated silhouettes above the
horizon; semi-abstract shapes in mist).

I seem to be going in circles.

The question seems to be - is he good enough to bring something new to
what are often quite traditional shots?  The photos are world class.  They
go beyond reportage.  But "these days" don't we expect something new?

Thank goodness no-one reads this :o)

Andrew

PS http://www.tomasmunita.com/ (silly popup site)

(*) wrong word.  No more staged than any "street photography".  But
somehow exactly the same as "street photography" from, say,
Cartier-Bresson.  Which, as I have probably made clear by now, is a
strange thing to criticise.