Square Photographs

 I have never been to Indiana, but I have a pretty good idea what it looks like thanks to daily visits to Jim Grey's blog, Down the Road.  Jim posts pictures there about his Home State, as well as those from his frequent road trips around the country.  The photographs are made with a large collection of old film cameras.  Jim has also published a series of books of photos and stories.  I was very pleased recently to receive a copy of the last book; it is entitled Square Photographs.  The pictures, in both color and black and white,  are all made with his Yashica Twin Lens Reflex cameras on medium-format paper-backed roll film.  

If you are mostly used to seeing photographs on the screen of your phone or your computer, looking at the nicely reproduced pictures in Square Photographs will be a somewhat shocking experience.  Even though many of the pictures depict pedestrian subjects they have a level of visual intensity that is hard to explain in words. Part of that impression comes from the large 6x6 cm negatives which can support considerable enlargement, but much of the impact of the photos is attributable to Jim's discerning eye.  I thought he made a particularly nice choice to put a head-on view of an old VW bus on the back cover.

My MAC screen shows a pretty good version of this shot, but it really pales in comparison with the actual cover picture.