This Week In Photography Books – Bernhard Fuchs

by Jonathan Blaustein

Waiting for the sunshine.
Waiting for the sunshine.
Tired of the gray days.
Tired of the gray days.
Oh, but it ain’t comin’,
it ain’t comin’, Soon.
No, it ain’t comin’,
it ain’t comin’, Soon.

The above text is not actually an old blues song. I swear. It’s an ironic little ditty my wife and I invented while living in Brooklyn. The winters wore me down in an onslaught of gray. Yes, I was Vitamin D deprived, so eventually, we moved.

Here in Northern New Mexico, we get something like 330 days of sunshine a year. No lie. And the depth of our blue skies gives a primal satisfaction to humans and animals alike. (Well, I’m guessing about the animals. I can’t actually speak to them, despite rumors to the contrary.)

The thing about all that sunshine: it’s addictive. Like photography itself, which derives from light, the volume and quality of light become an addiction. (Try saying that five times fast.) I don’t know how people live without it in Portland, as even a few days of gray will start to get me down. Like now.

It felt like Summer in April this year, (Big Ups to Climate Change) but the last four days here have been cold and wet and gray. Bone-cold. Bleak. Monotonous. So I’m feeling depressed. Forgive me.

Given that I can’t do anything to make the sun burst through the clouds, I thought I might as well sink into the moment. Revel in despair. Oh, the misery.

As I sifted through my book pile, though, I came across “Farms,” by Bernhard Fuchs, recently published by Koenig Books in London. What’s that, you say? A book about farms? What’s so depressing about that?

Well, these farms were photographed in the sad, desaturated light of Fuchs’ adopted home of Germany. Not a drop of real color to be found in this one. (Well, beyond a touch of green grass, that is.) We see barns, of course, and hay piles, leafless trees, and a pitchfork that has seen better days.

The book is the metaphorical equivalent of rubber-necking at a car crash. Nasty, on the surface, but impossible to look away. I don’t know why people take pleasure in the anti-aesthetic, (myself included,) but they most surely do.

The photographs are well-made, as is the book itself. It’s wrapped in substantial-feeling canvas, which matches the palate of the images within. So much melancholy. So much ennui. Yet strangely beautiful. Quiet. Lonely. Dignified.

I see images like this here on the farm all the time. (In real life.) But I don’t point my camera at them. I’m too busy waiting for the good weather to come back. So let’s consider this the book review where I bitched and moaned a bit, and gave you the opportunity to say, “Hey, Blaustein, get over yourself. Summer will be here soon. I promise.”

As to the book, which ought to be more of a focus of my musings, it’s really good. I recommend it. But only if you have the mental fortitude to pick it up, revel in its sad light, and then put it back on the shelf. Better to go outside and take a walk after all.

Bottom Line: Beautiful and bleak

To purchase “Farms,” visit Photo-Eye

Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.

Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.