booooooooooring

* update : 300+ pictures deleted, done for today (why isnt there a selection tool to delete more than 1 dev at once is beyond my comprehension ?) ; gallery should be much more interesting now it's been skimmed or at least, easier to go around.

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A nice little collection of essays by Madame Sontag about photography, many aspects of which are studied here : the influence it got on the modern art scene - or even the journalistic one ; how, as spectators, it influenced the way we look at the world, our education, our sensibilities, how it relates to what is real...in a surreal way, its position vs other art techniques. The "act" of taking a picture is also analyzed, the potential reasons why people take pictures (the theory that photographs are predators made me smile), and so on...
The book was written during the 70's...that would be the only negative point of it...the digital age has somehow changed the way photography can be reproduced, altered, edited...which is something that is not discussed in the book (and make some of its theories outdated) but this is the only negative aspect of a very good book.

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After the previous Taschen book, which sometimes felt like "Picasso for dummies", I found this one to be too dense for my little brain. The theories built in here were very interesting, but the way they were exposed was not always friendly for the neophyte I am in the history of American painting, psychanalisis, and so on, which left me slightly irritated at my own self, and wanting to read more about those topic - when I already had other plans. I hate when an author takes his readers' knowledge "for granted" (I somehow feel I'm not being taken care of) or when a book leaves me with a feeling of being uncomplete (or the other way around)
Remains a few, wonderful, full size - or even, better double pages - prints of his masterworks, a source of inspiration (jealousy ?) from the aspiring photographer and the discovery of one work I didn't know, and fell in love with (and made the book worth it) :
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The 36 stratagems is an old chinese book on how to lead a fight and take the best decisions based on your present situation inside a conflict. Just like the Art of War or the Machiavel's Prince, I enjoy this kind of reading but might not be enough of a political person to be able to apply these strategies in real life, whereas I am sure some people would excel at it (some books based on this one have been written with its theories applied to go or other strategy games, or to business situations - but since business is war, its completely logical - I'm sure it's very pertinent in that case).
Still the book is divided in 36 chapters, each one of them explaining briefly what the stratagem is all about and describing how it was used by chinese leaders back when China was...not China yet but a multiplicity of smaller "kingdoms" and how their leaders took benefit out of those to overcome their opponents. An interesting, funny and - slightly - exotic read.