I am Not This Body: The Pinhole Photographs of Barbara Ess

Rating:
Summary: ...and i am not this jaded
Review: Dream-like, mysterious, haunting,......but at the same time these images by Barbara Ess evoke a deja vu feeling in me. It's as if I've experienced these images myself....are these my own memories or dreams displayed on the pages? well, this book certainly makes me want to get hold of a pinhole camera to achieve at least technically (hopefully) some of the visual qualities of these dreamy images. Leave those books of Yosemite on the bookstore shelves (more than enough have been consumed) and pick up a copy of I AM NOT THIS BODY to get a taste of the artistic and subconscious-evoking possibilities of photography.

Rating:
Summary: Dreamy Inspiration
Review: Dream-like, mysterious, haunting,......but at the same time these images by Barbara Ess evoke a deja vu feeling in me. It's as if I've experienced these images myself....are these my own memories or dreams displayed on the pages? well, this book certainly makes me want to get hold of a pinhole camera to achieve at least technically (hopefully) some of the visual qualities of these dreamy images. Leave those books of Yosemite on the bookstore shelves (more than enough have been consumed) and pick up a copy of I AM NOT THIS BODY to get a taste of the artistic and subconscious-evoking possibilities of photography.

Rating:
Summary: ...and i am not this jaded
Review: I remember being in 9th grade and digging through the garbage to collect trash to make psycho-sardonic-greeting cards with. Boy that was funny. Me and Ellen B just cracked up over that so hard...no one else seemed to get it. That's kind of how this collection struck me--a bit of an inside joke using old crud and dead end debris to create ghostly and funky tableaus. I've never owned a book of professional photography but was inspired by the reviewer notes to buy this online without a preview. I can honestly say that if i had been able to open the pages and experience the images even briefly--i wouldn't have purchased the collection. Yes, the psychological interiour is filled with murky matter and we are bound to witness it and some are gifted at illuminating it, but there was no heart revelation in this work for me. It just kind of felt ragged out and sloppy. No, we don't need another book of glossy yosemite postcards, but for thirty bucks and all the accolades i expected more of a transformative experience and less "event-bam". But hey, the snake on the den floor was cool.