Films
Paul Graham
MACK
English
Hardcover
64 Pages
240 x 320 mm
2011
ISBN 9781907946028
Films is Paul Graham’s eulogy to the physical material of photography: Film. The 20th century’s greatest medium has undergone a catastrophic decline over the past decade as digital cameras have swept aside the traditional process of taking photographs. Film has died: Kodacolor, Fujicolor, Tri-X, Kodachrome, Ektacolor – all evocative names for any photographer – are now gone or fading fast. Yet this magical material is a true product of both science: silver salts suspended in gelatin emulsion on celluloid base, and magical alchemy: it could capture light. Film became the defining material of 20th century creativity, and is ubiquitous to every great artist of photography and film making.
While examining his past 30 years of work for the 2009 survey exhibition and book, Graham became enamoured with the material of his craft, and began to reflect upon the physical substance by which he, and all photographers, made their images. Besides scanning his images for the survey, he also scanned the blank film ends and unexposed frames from each body of work to gather an alternative survey, a ‘negative retrospective’ of his practice. What first appears to be abstract dots, blobs or colour forms, are in fact just greatly magnified images of the raw film emulsion – the color dye clouds formed in the exposure and development of film. These images are not abstract at all, but extreme close-ups of the film’s structure – the red, green and blue dyes that form film emulsion, which comprise each and every celluloid image in existence. Their beauteous complication, the wonder of their granular form, irrespective of what they describe, is given here for us to enjoy.
Graham presents us a timely tribute to the passing of film. The grains, color dyes and black and white crystals, make images of beauty, simplicity and scientific record. Part wistful homage, part farewell, part visual wonder, Films is a book for anyone who engaged with photographic material in the 20th century.
(source: https://mackbooks.co.uk/products/films-br-paul-graham)
About the Artist
Paul Graham (b.1956) is a British artist who works in Fine Art photography. His pieces typically show people and objects in realistic settings with surreal or unusual elements added to the image. Though Graham worked as a photographer during his 20s, he did not have his first show until he was 30. In 2012, the Hasselblad Foundation awarded him the International Award in Photography, making him the only British winner of the award. Graham is the author of over a dozen books and survey monographs that document different areas of the world.
paulgrahamarchive.com
(source http://www.artnet.com/artists/paul-graham/biography)
About the Publisher
MACK Books are an art and photography publishing house based in London, working with established and emerging artists, writers and curators, and cultural institutions.
mackbooks.co.uk
(source: https://mackbooks.co.uk/pages/about-us)
