Linda Connors – Odyssey – update

49_Goddess_with_Turtle water_stream

I just acquired the September issue of B&W magazine, mostly on the basis of them featuring the Linda Connor’s photobook Odyssey, published last year by Chronicle Books, which I reviewed earlier this year. And perhaps I was very interested in reading Stephen Vincent’s review of her work. Because as a photobook reviewer, I appreciate reading what others have to say about the same body of work, especially for photobook that I have enjoyed.

Bottom line, I think that Vincent’s review is excellent and provides some different insights for reflecting on Conner’s photographs.

That alone may have been a good reason to post this, but what disappointed me were the quality of the images that B&W magazine printed. Where as her images in the book are rich and with a long full tonality, the B&W images are thin, washed out with the contast too high. Her images deserve better than that, so hopefully you will not judge her photographs based on these poor quality images.

The second quibble is with the way her images were shown. I think one of the strengths of her book is the careful pairing of the photographs. The pairing is complementary and provides more opportunities for interputation and mental places to wander. There is only one pairing in this article on pages 28-29 from the book that illustrates the greater potential.

This may be a quibble, because the editors can interpret the work as well and change the order of presentation. Likewise, I find that I do this as well with my reviews, I edit my choices to make a point, and where I do pair images, such as my recent review of Mark Klett’s Time Studies, I did alter the pairing to what I thought provided additional insights. My point is that Linda did careful chose her pairings and to not use more of them did might be a weakness in the review. My opinion, eh?

Best regards, Douglas Stockdale

Heavenly-rock 98_June_26_1892 Lick