Review by Douglas Stockdale •
This is a slim volume with a series of understated, elegant images framed with an expansive amount of classic white margins. The photographs are a combination of toned and hand colored silver gelatin photographs in which the subjects appear to be only casually related without a real sense of a specific narrative.
The contemplative images as sequenced evoke a state of visual mediation. Each photograph appears to be carefully arranged, composed and then paired with a slightly contrasting image. I sense a cross-over of the early modernism of Minor White within a more contemporary framing and yet perhaps a hint of the still earlier Camera Work published by Stieglitz.
The images have a slight hint of surrealism, such as the floating glass vase of flowers that appear to be illuminated by a glowing light that emanates just off the side of the right border. That the sequenced singular images that comprise this body of work create an odd visual dissonance for me, I nevertheless find this photobook intriging.
This is a pensive and delicate collection of images that are housed in a similar style softcover book, where the physical form of the photobook appears to echo the visual style of the body of work.
____
Photographer – Ernesto Esquer – In No Time, 2017
Photographer: Ernesto Esquer, resides Tucson, AZ, USA
Publisher: Dark Spring Press (Tucson, AZ, USA)
Introduction: Ken Rosenthal
Text: English
Stiff-cover book with side sewn stitching, four-color lithography, printed & bound by AZ Lithography, Tucson, Arizona
Photobook designer: Andy Burgess and Ernesto Esquer
____
PhotoBook Journal 