Tuesday, 9 October 2007

Exhibition: Paul McDonough at Sasha Wolf

I just read about this exhibition at in-Public (the home of street photography ;-)). I was not very surprised by any of the pictures. They have a snapshot tendency, they are close, but they are not complicated enough for my taste. They are somehow extremely true: an expression, a gesture, a couple kissing, a handshake... that kind of stuff. All shot in the late sixties in New York. Amidst all the pictures, I must say that I love this one:



It fairly much summarizes the style of the exhibition: simple, straightforward and not pretentious at all. It's harder to define what I like of the image. Maybe that it's not a lie in any sense. Somehow it strikes me for it's poor framing. The legs are not in there! I mean, he's small enough to aim at, I guess. There's a bit of a light leak on the top, or maybe it just needs some burning. He looks worried and I have no clue at what's going on at that side of the frame. What do we have there at the bottom right? And the top... oh, headless people, sweet.

Many more images at the Sasha Wolf Gallery.

1 comment:

Gary said...

I guess I'm confused that you think of this as a snapshot. A snapshot is one of the most carefully composed pictures that we take of our friends or families in front of the monument. This is not a snapshot. It is a slice of life. It says something about us in the 1960's. Do you see a water bottle or cell phone? Are people drinking Starbucks or coffee on the street? People are going about their business.