Patrick Hogan – Still – PhotoBook Journal

Still is a splendid, intriguing photobook, which has been photographed and designed by Patrick Hogan as more of an emotional read. Perhaps similar in experience as listening to a song with a repetition of the melodies.

As the title implies, quiet and intimate moments are captured while creating a place that can best be described as ambivalence. The book has an interesting cadence and inclusion of difficult to read interior plates, at times there is the faintest hint of a photographic image and other times on the extreme of darkness, both bordering on illegibility that beguiles me. The repeating of the faint images is a symbolic read of a memory, the original subject, once clearly seen; now taking on a ghostly and incomplete presence.

An interesting mash-up of portraiture (identity), landscapes (place) and documentary style moments, which are interwoven just as events unfold. Images and themes reoccur. Hogan provides an intimate look at his subjects, events, places and the environment that envelops that place. I find this to be a very poetic narrative. It is a photobook that I keep returning to as I enjoy each reading; more questions with few answers.

Linen hard cover book, embossed text with a color tipped-in photograph and a numbered edition of 500 books (number 206/500 was reviewed for this commentary). Bound with a Smyth sewn & glued binding that permits a relatively lay-flat read. The introduction is provided by Colin Graham and a poem by Dermot Healy. To further underscore the introspective nature of the book, it is without captions or pagination.

Although published in 2012, this book was not widely available until the beginning of 2013, and I have included this photobook by Patrick Hogan in my interesting photobooks of 2013, and you can see my entire selection here.

Douglas Stockdale for The PhotoBook