One of Paul Graham's seminal works, Beyond Caring, has been republished- I caught a glimpse of it the other day at the Leica Gallery in San Francisco and the reproductions looked luscious. I wanted to spend more time with it, but I was approached and advised that they were closing. At first I thought I was just being harassed again... recently I was deemed suspicious (I still got it!) and diligently followed by the security guard at a Container Store- apparently I was gonna jet with a coupla 30x40x20in plastic containers beneath my armpits! But they're (surprisingly?) very polite and courteous at Leica- guess I'm forever scarred from frequenting NYC photo galleries.
Copies of Beyond Caring could be found in every bargain book bin like discarded, overflowing sardines in just about every NYC book store in the eighties and nineties. You could pick one up for about $15 bucks- now they're going for well over... $500, and the reproductions suck next to the new $70 version. Beyond Caring and Troubled Land were Graham's formidable one/two knockout combination that shook the art and documentary worlds to their foundations by the innovative and previously verboten use of... color! It's also nothing short of a minor miracle that his photos are even in focus (not to mention creatively composed- no flippy screen then) since he had to shoot many of his pictures: from the hip, in relatively poor light, and with a medium format camera! And they still retain their raw power, beauty and urgency!
After Troubled Land, Graham feared repeating himself (understandable) and went on to produce more experimental work (to say the least), including a book that consisted solely and completely of close ups of film grain. I-kid-you-not... wouldn't have believed it myself unless I'd seen it with my own two eyes- and someone actually paid to print and publish it!
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