I came across a photobook by British photographer Vanessa Winship titled She Dances on Jackson. I liked it so much that I ended up buying one for my collection! It was shot in the US over a period of more than a year and features beautiful black and white images. Winship shot them on a 5x4 camera and uses both landscape and portrait formats in the book. The images are a combination of landscapes and portraits as well as individual details and I found that the mix creates interest. There is no evident narrative in the way the images have been arranged. The only discernible narrative seems to be her journey across America. The title is also completely oblique with no obvious meaning although it could refer to Jackson a town in Mississippi or the Jackson River in Virginia. (Or possibly even ‘Stonewall’ Jackson a Confederate commander in the American Civil War.) Anyway, there is no explanation so you are left guessing.
Images are beautifully seen and realised and the black and white, slightly warm tone reproduction gives a stillness and melancholy feel to the work. The 5x4 image quality is compelling but at this image size (8 x 6 1/2 inches surrounded by a plain white border) I feel that they would likely also look good shot on full frame digital or MF film, although the tonality would probably suffer. The images all feature very similar, diffuse lighting and I wonder how Winship managed to do this given that the project extended across the summer of 2012 and many of the images were shot in the southern US. Most of the skies in the photos are empty with little detail which adds to the slightly baleful look. The images have been printed with a full tonal range, although extreme highlights could well have been deliberately subdued in the post production stage.
The presentation of the book is superb. Each image is on a separate page with a blank page opposite. I like the space that the spare pages create around the images, allowing them to breathe without another image in the same spread competing for your attention. It is printed on a thick paper stock that has a slight lustrous quality to it and has a cloth cover which also adds to the sense of quality. It has no page numbers or explanations as to locations, subjects, date etc. which means that nothing detracts from the images.
As already mentioned, I found the book compelling and it gave me the idea of shooting Suffolk water- and landscapes on 5x4 and combining the images into a photobook printed on high quality paper stock. I have already shot 10-12 images along these lines so completing this could be a project for the summer.
Cloth cover of She Dances on Jackson
One of the superb portraits from she dances on jackson