Trent Parke's Minutes to Midnight

Deliberately point a camera at anything and something is being contrived, unless you are suggesting it's possible to put the apple back on the tree and return to an age of innocence?

You'll guess I'm a fan of Minutes to Midnight, particularly as it is a photographer making images from a personal point of view, not afraid to have an opinion, and brilliantly avoids hiding behind the mask that photography is somehow dispassionate and objective.

V
 
Santa brought me this book, following my desire. But I'm not allowed to open the parcel until Christmas...
robert
 
gdmcclintock said:
Not really. The work just left me cold. It seemed very self-conscious if not contrived.
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Ahhh, I got it. You heard about it a lot and then it didn't live up to the hype. I guess I was more curious as to why it wasn't art, but I won't make you waste your time on something you didn't like anyway. It happens to all of us.
 
V-12 said:
Deliberately point a camera at anything and something is being contrived, unless you are suggesting it's possible to put the apple back on the tree and return to an age of innocence? You'll guess I'm a fan of Minutes to Midnight, particularly as it is a photographer making images from a personal point of view, not afraid to have an opinion, and brilliantly avoids hiding behind the mask that photography is somehow dispassionate and objective. V
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Who thinks "photography is somehow dispassionate and objective"? No one I know. Minutes to Midnight, brilliant? One need not have a naïve belief in photography to disagree with your conjecture.
 
jsrockit said:
Ahhh, I got it. You heard about it a lot and then it didn't live up to the hype. I guess I was more curious as to why it wasn't art, but I won't make you waste your time on something you didn't like anyway. It happens to all of us.
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I did not say Minutes to Midnight is not art. And you are correct; the work does not live up to all the hype. To be clear, I do not dislike the book; it's not Carpoolers for God's sake, it just bores me with its tired Magnum aesthetic of pseudo-originality.
 
gdmcclintock said:
I did not say Minutes to Midnight is not art. And you are correct; the work does not live up to all the hype. To be clear, I do not dislike the book; it's not Carpoolers for God's sake, it just bores me with its tired Magnum aesthetic of pseudo-originality.
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I really like MtM. Great book, in my opinion, but I'm fully understand where you're coming from. I don't think it lived up to the hype either initially, but I keep getting sucked back in to looking at it again and again. It is my most read photobook. But then that's just me.

I recently got slammed for not liking Salgado's Genesis - I still think its a load a rubbish with maybe 10 great photos. Obviously some people like it and for the life of me can't work out why. Luck for all of us there is lots of choice.

Cheers,
Michael
 
gdmcclintock said:
I did not say Minutes to Midnight is not art. And you are correct; the work does not live up to all the hype. To be clear, I do not dislike the book; it's not Carpoolers for God's sake, it just bores me with its tired Magnum aesthetic of pseudo-originality.
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Well to be clear I think Steidl is running a pretty good hype machine to drive the business. But it also depends on what you look for in art, my friend once nearly fell from his chair when I said I didn't like Alec Soth's work
 
Just got the book, so far I like it, but you know how it goes, it takes a awhile to form an actual opinion beyond the graphic first glance. I will say right off the bat that the work is loads better than some of the soulless pseudo-nudes of unflatteringly posed women looking like hapless blobs in needlessly wide and distorted panoramic snaps.....found elsewhere on this site...;-)
 
KM-25 said:
Just got the book, so far I like it, but you know how it goes, it takes a awhile to form an actual opinion beyond the graphic first glance. I will say right off the bat that the work is loads better than some of the soulless pseudo-nudes of unflatteringly posed women looking like hapless blobs in needlessly wide and distorted panoramic snaps.....found elsewhere on this site...;-)
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Like this one?



image-4129480235.jpg
 
Minutes to Midnight is a terrific book and IMO stands comparison with many of the great examples in the history of the photobook as an art form in its own right. The references to The Americans are apt – not only did Trent Parke have a great deal in common with Robert Frank (both books being the result of a lengthy road trip taken with their young families in tow) but both books demonstrate a similar energy, each photographer riffing on the world they are passing through. I'm surprised that Minutes to Midnight is splitting opinions – Parke has always struck me (much like, say, Koudelka) as a real photographer's photographer, someone capable of building an astonishing body of work with insouciant effortlessness.
 
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