Critique de Choice
This is an inventive new book of recent images utilizing digital imaging technology by the renowned Mexican documentary photographer Pedro Meyer. The introductory essay appropriately sets the stage with a critique of the photo as document by Spanish photographer and critic Joan Fontcuberta, who states that photographs have manipulated and interpreted truth since photography was invented. This is evidenced by Meyer's altered black-and-white photographs of his eight-year journey traveling through "Reagan-era America," paying particular homage along the way to Robert Frank's The Americans (1959). He employs color to distinguish the altered photographs of Mexico, focusing on the Mixten Indian people of Oaxaca. Meyer combines a playful sense of heightened reality with an awareness of the surrealism of daily life into an almost seamless, rejuvenated digital image. Worth mentioning is the informative chapter "The Digital Studio," in which Meyer reveals his manipulations of nine images in an insightful step-by-step illustrated narrative. Scattered throughout the book are quotations excerpted from personal letters commenting on the digital revolution. Also included is an e-mail interview with Meyer. Chronology; list of publications and exhibitions. Undergraduate (including two-year technical); graduate; faculty; professional; general. J. Natal; Nazareth College of Rochester
Critique du Library Journal
Those who regard photographic imagery as a precise representation of the physical world will find this companion to a touring exhibition unsettling. Internationally acclaimed Mexican photographer Meyer traveled across the United States capturing visual images of solitude, materialism, and sociopolitical conflicts and across Mexico documenting the spirituality inherent in peasant life, folk customs, and religious artifacts. Here he shows how his original photos were "manipulated" by computer technology to achieve his perceptions of reality. Digital capability enables him to place a person from one picture into the landscape of another; to enlarge, diminish, eliminate, highlight, or suspend in space people or objects; and to alter light and shadow. The 115 color and black-and-white photographs that result generate a haunting, surrealistic quality. Barcelona-based artist-scholar Fontcuberta provides a lucid essay on documentary photography. Recommended for comprehensive photography collections.Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
