Home Fires- Bruce Haley

All Photos: © Bruce Haley

During the course of the 16 years and 3 iterations of this blog, I've been sent a handful of books, literally one-handful. Not a complaint, just a statement of fact, and I'm grateful at that. Recently, Bruce Haley notified me very much out of the blue that he was sending me his latest, and being a fan, was anxious to have and hold. And then, it occurred to me, what if, what if I... errr... didn't like it? I remembered world famous conflict photographer Don McCullin upon retiring from that particular scene, took to shooting rather serene and romantic shots of his homeland. A healing, wholesome process for him I'm sure- that he's more than rightfully earned, just not my cup of tea. So when I heard that Mr. Haley, also a renowned conflict photographer, was photographing the land and area of his youth, my anticipation turned more to... apprehension.

Was able to dispense with my "book must have 20 good photos" rule halfway through book...

The first thing that hits one upon opening Home Fires is the color palette throughout the entirety of the book. I remember Helen Levitt stating that in a perfect world she would be able to photograph in some perfect compromise of color and B&W. She wasn't particularly pleased with the end results of either medium. And I've seen my fair share of B&W/color hybrid attempts at image making and editing, analog and digital- all regrettably far short from appealing. And the reason I reference all these failed attempts and wishful thinking is simply because these photographs achieve what I had long considered not possible- photographic images that read and can be appreciated as both B&W and color. The color palette is that muted, the light that subdued, so I found myself appreciating these images both for their seemingly nuanced B&W tonal values, as well as their subdued yet emotive color.

The question being, how did Mr Haley pull it off? What manner of magic allowed him the perfect amalgam of monochrome and color, in camera, via software or both? Not being the technical maven by any stretch, I just wanted the most basic of insights... which is exactly what I got; "It was the color that was there, no more, no less." At first I was taken aback. Huh? Anytime I was in desert areas, the colors were like... super saturated! Then I got to thinking: how my color sense sucks, how Bruce Haley is a no nonsense, no artifice kinda guy, and... how the few times I was in the desert during the winter season, yeah, conditions were like- really grey, colors really muted. No long or involved explanation into the technical or philosophical needed, simple reality provided the key. Perhaps, if I hadn't been shooting B&W at the time, it would have hit me from jump!

Photo: © Bruce Haley

Photo: © Bruce Haley

Landscape photographers please take heed, you don't need exploding sunsets or 3D HDR vistas to make dramatic photos; the current trend to make every landscape (and/or street photo) look like a scene out of Avatar is neither necessary, nor desirable. These landscapes are stark, bleak, desolate- and beautifully so! But then, this is a photographer at the peak of his game, someone who can confidently point his lens at the most barren of vistas and piece together seemingly insignificant details into dramatic compositions which most of us would simply drive by on our way to photograph something... 'more interesting.'

Photo: © Bruce Haley

That's not to say that more traditionally dramatic and sweeping scenics aren't included, they are. It's just that the lesson learned is how less, in skillful hands,  can indeed be more. Many of the shots are downright apocalyptic, and if you think that's easy to achieve successfully when surrounded by desolation- how many shots were taken this past year of empty city streets trying to achieve just that, coming up like flat, boring shots of... empty city streets!

I'm currently in the process of donating my photobook collection to the Bronx Documentary Center and notified them that I would be holding on to a few at least temporarily- this one ain't going anywhere for a while...

Photo: © Bruce Haley

Addendum: Almost forgot, the book is formatted so that there is one photo every other page on the right hand side. No randomly sized, erratically placed images bouncing all about and occasionally bleeding unto other pages! Uniform pacing and placing that let's you appreciate these well reproduced images- one of those things I'm comfortably conservative about.