Books
Debora Miller -
Library Journal Hughes has been doggedly photographing human society's flotsam on beaches for ten years. As a surfer, his relationship to the coastline is intimate, and his view is close and dramatic. He creates confounding magic from washed-up trash, plastic bottles, disposable beverage tops, tangled fishing wire, and deflated beach toys-just some of the objects he has captured in England, Scotland, and the United States. The statuary images he finesses from them are at once majestic and insidious. Starkly positioned where found, the human-manufactured items look dangerous, lonely, and strangely monumental, their presence a distress against such lovely backdrops as sand, sea, and sky. Blending artistic beauty with environmental exposé, Hughes is successful in making the viewer wonder how garbage affects our oceans and beaches. Five essays contextualize the work in artistic and environmental terms and call attention to the immense ecological problem these objects present. Finely designed (by David Carson) and printed, this is an excellent first book for the photographer. Recommended for large public and academic photography collections.
Read Full Review here > materialworld/2008/
This photography book published by Booth-Clibborn Editions and H N Abrams features over 150 photographs by the artist Andy Hughes made on different beach locations from California to Western Cornwall. The book explores and examines the relationship of beach waste as both an object of visual enquiry and as a reference to the global environmental crisis. "Dominant wave theory", we are told, " is loosely based on a scientific term used in the prediction and observation of wave models". The book sets out to parallel this idea visually through the observation of the beach as a local site for the interplay of nature and consumer culture. Through extraordinarily focused colour photographs of found waste objects, the reader is offered tangible stilled moments of reflection on the nature of these objects and left to ponder their place in the world now that their original purpose has been washed (eroded) away. This extensive archive of images forms the core of the project with the design and development of the book by David Carson working to heighten the visual scope and pace of the work. This is apparent in the scale, ordering and pairing of the images, creating thoughtful and revealing relationships throughout the book. | Stephen Brigdale, Southampton University
Order online via Amazon or other bookstores
Signed copies available by sending an email via the contact link on the about page
|