I have been thinking of reviewing this book for a while now but kept putting it off because I found it very challenging to assimilate my thoughts, and therefore to write something worthwhile about it. As a result of this frustration I have now re-read the book (s) a few times and think I can put my finger on why I personally find this book so difficult, so here we go on Ivan Sigal’s White Road.

I got this book on recommendation from my good friend ‘The Librarian’ Sebastian Song and I have to say that he has an extremely good eye for what is interesting and usually a bit different. When the book(s) arrived we were both stunned by the quality of the packaging and presentation of the work and I have to say that the cardboard boxing and quality of binding and printing by Stiedl is top notch, that is not where the problems lie………………

Inside the marvellous packaging are two books, one of which is a kind of written diary that Sigal kept during the six years or so over which he shot the second, and much larger of the two books while working as a media project designer in Central Asia. The value for money quotient seems high here, however, despite being nicely presented, I find the diary a pretty boring and indulgent read and have never got past the first few pages. That may of course just be my very limited attention span and I would be interested to know if any of my friends who also bought the book have read it cover to cover. On to the main event though, and the black wrapped and very large three hundred and sixty seven page photo book of Sigal’s journey’s and experiences while working and travelling around the Cental Asian region including many of the former Soviet Union states. I will say that again and write it as a number, there are 367 pages, mostly of photographs and I think that is this books single biggest problem, Sigal in my opinion lacks the skill of tight editing (or the firm hand of a publisher) and as a consequence the book is way, way too big to support the content within. For me it should have been a third of this size for, as we shall see there are some very nice photographs inside that get lost in the mediocrity of the rest. I find this a real shame as I wanted so much to really like this book on my first opening and skim.

I always really worry that I come over like some kind of ‘smart Alec’ in these reviews so I am going to do my very best to support my views on this book with examples of what I mean but at the end of the day if you are interested in the book you really need to have a look for yourself.

One of the reasons that the book is so big is that SIgal seems to work scenes in a kind of circular manner and loop back to the original idea. I have a very big problem with this as he does it by using a panoramic camera and then different angles on a theme or idea in standard formats. Here is an example of this using two photos from a set on the theme of some kind of outdoor party.

Here is the first image, and for my money, its one of the few times in the book where he gets close to exploiting the dynamics of the panoramic format. The girl in the centre is beautifully picked out and the frame has edges that help you to stay inside the picture. However that is then followed by this image shot in standard 3:2.

This is a decent photo as well however I simply can’t resolve in my mind why they are both there, and rather than build on each other, I find that they compete and destroy any tension or interest that could be built around the theme.

Here is another similar example although I don’t find the panoramic as interesting as the previous example shot, I have the same issue with the second image simply creating repetition.

What do you think, do these shots build on each other or develop the idea? I will say it again, maybe its just me, but I can’t help but find this confusing and feel that it dilutes the value of interesting scenes.

I did mention the panoramic shots and I have a small number of books in my collection where very good photographers have used this format and its obvious to me that this is an extraordinarily difficult format to harness the potential of and very few succeed completely. Part of the problem it would appear to me is that you either use it as a kind of cinematic tool to create a sense of grand space and vista, or, and this is even harder, you use it in a documentary manner and for that to work you really have to have owl like eyes to fill the frame with interest !!!
Sigal tries to use it in both ways and although he has some beauties, there are a significant number that for me just don’t work and seem to be there only to support this circular idea of showing the same scene in different formats and from slightly different angles and I have already shared my thoughts on that. Here is an example of what I mean where he gets stuck between the vista and documentary approach and satisfies neither.

Look at how redundant and uninteresting the whole left hand side of the frame is and this is exacerbated by the spread across two pages. Here is another example on the same theme and although this is better, I still feel that the width is not exploited properly to create dynamic tension and interest in the photograph.

Okay, I have had my say on that and I can only refer people who want to see what can be done with a panoramic to Ernesto Bazan’s, Isla and many of the shots in Michael Ackerman’s End Time City, although thats a little more hit and miss than Isla. While on the subject of Ernesto I make no apology for saying that I consider him a master photographer and the best teacher I know and one of the most important lessons that I have learned from him is that everything in the frame has to be justified and play its part, it takes only one distracting element, no matter how small to ruin and devalue a picture. I could cry when I look at the following picture that has extraordinary potential yet for me is wrecked by the photographer behind the musicians. It distracts me and grounds the photograph in reality that takes away the mystery and undoubted beauty of the dancer and the whole moment becomes deflated for me as a result. It is my opinion that a great photographer would not have tolerated this and would have edited this one out, or had a better option from moving position, and it is this kind of thing that I believe hurts this book so badly. I will re-iterate what I said at the start, this could have been a very nice book if it was more tightly edited and two-thirds smaller.

Having got all of that criticism out of my system I want to end here on positives about the book and round up with some closing thoughts on what I find is an extremely frustrating book because it fails to reach what could have been its potential. As you can see with the opening photo, there are some extremely good shots in here if you look and I find that at times Sigal gets at something a little bit special.

I really like this photo for its simplicity and although its not panoramic, it shows that Sigal understands the vista and documentary dynamic but sadly doesn’t show it often enough for my liking. Here is another of my favourites from the book and, along with the opening shot, there are a number of times that Sigal hints at what could have been done here by creating a much more interesting and less obvious selection of shots for the publication.

I want to wrap this up now because I am getting a gnawing feeling that I have been too hard on Sigal and his book. I hope you don’t get bored by me saying this, but I selfishly write these posts to try to educate myself and, for better or worse, I have achieved my personal goal with this review and feel that I learned an enormous amount from looking really closely at the individual shots, structure, editing and sequencing of the work, and that is what I have tried to share here.

Right, lets get out of this and look at this weeks favourite photo(s) which has a neat little story behind its choice, and what was also turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me. It’s the cover of Tom Waits famous Raindogs album and the shot is by Anders Petersen.

Anders Petersen

About six months ago I was talking to my friend Harald Helle who is a very keen photographer from Australia and I happened to tell him that I really like Anders work and a chance had come up to go to a workshop with him in Italy. Without hesitation Harald immediately piped up that I should get a copy of Tom Waits Raindogs album for him to sign as it had a shot from his Cafe Lehmitz series on the front cover. That’s exactly what I did and, as you can see, Anders gracefully signed the cover for me and explained the photo which was of two of the people that he photographed a lot in the bar. He explained that the guy in the photo was very much in love with the girl but that she was not quite so interested and she sometimes got pissed off at Anders for taking so many photos. I think if you take a little time to look at the photo you will get a sense of that dynamic and the expression of the guy is wonderful as he nestles in his hearts content yet the girls laugh seems to diminish him. Somehow this photo is very defining of the classic Cafe Lehmitz work which is shot entirely in the cafe and a couple of bars nearby, and you can feel the authentic boozy carelessness that Anders captures so well and I guess thats why Tom Waits liked it as an image to support his music.

The pleasant surprise that I mentioned came when Anders pointed out that the rear cover was shot by Robert Frank and that he was in great company. In fairness the rear cover is nothing more than a nice shot of Tom Waits but I found that a fascinating piece of historical value and it has added to my sense of enjoyment of the whole album. Just to finish off the surprises, in that strange Sebaldesque (I think I just invented a new word) way of things, the title track is called Singapore.

Colin Steel, Sunday 14th September, Glasgow