Decades ago I bought a copy of David Plowden's 'The hand of man on America' (published in 1971) which introduced me to what could be called American commonplace, photos of everyday things seen in the landscape, towns and cities. I've now got a collection of photobooks by William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, Jeff Brouws, David Graham, Lee Friedlander, John Baeder and others.
Mark Power, in 'Good morning America' Part II, follows this commonplace genre with seventy photos taken between 2013 and this year, they were taken across the country and appear in no particular sequence. There are some remarkable pictures in the book but I felt there were too many also rans. Photo fifteen shows a section of a hastily made door with the frame that cuts a picture on a wall in half or photo sixty-five revealing the interior of a church in Spearfish, South Dakota, it's just part of what looks like a hanging curtain and a row of seats. So many of the photos seem to lack any particular visual interest, either color or composition which actually highlights the really good shots.
Unfortunately the book's production doesn't enhance the photos. The good quality but thick paper (printed with a two hundred screen) creates a substantial gutter through all the photos that go over a spread and there are fifteen foldouts so these pictures end up with two creases. The book really should have been landscape, still keeping the foldouts which would only have had one crease. A minor point but why were the rather minimum captions all on one back page? They are set in a small enough typeface to be on each page with the relevant photo. This book is part two of a projected five and if they are all upright it will certainly dilute the impact of Power's creativity.
A worthy attempt at introducing typography to a young audience using a graphic novel style supplied by eleven artists. The first thing to say is that the book originated in France so it sees the subject from a French perspective and secondly the graphic style of some of the illustrators varies wildly, the work of Singeon and Anne Simon is remarkably casual (more appropriate for an under-fives book) whereas the art and layouts from Oliver Deloye and Alexandre Clerisse are much tighter and more in keeping with the subject.
The story of type, predictably, starts with the origins of writing and slowly meanders through the creation of metal type and the development of printing which created a huge demand for different typefaces like Garamond, Times, Bocklin, Franklin Gothic, Futura, Helvetica and they all reflected the creativity of the age they were designed in. Perhaps it was a mistake to allow the artists to draw the typefaces, they end up looking quite amateurish.
I thought it odd that there is a chapter on Letraset (a type of rub-down lettering) as it was basically used by students and non-professional designers who couldn't afford proper commercial typesetting and there is very little reference to a range of sans faces that originated in mid-Europe and the US.
The back pages list some contemporary type designers, a glossary of type terms and a very short (essentially French) bibliography.
The book is quite lightweight and most likely appropriate for a school library.
Andrew Moore took these photos of Alabama between 2015 and 2018 and they concentrate on the lower part of the State where, in past years, cotton production was high and Jim Crow attitudes ever present towards the black population. In his essay Moore says Alabama's politics and photography are connected. Walker Evans in the thirties took a remarkable series of photos revealing the poverty of tenant farmers which appeared in the famous Let us praise famous men book and news photos of the civil rights years later again put the State on the map.
The large photos in the book capture a much more peaceful looking Alabama presented in a fascinating sequence of exterior, interior, portraits and sometimes extreme close ups of the decaying fabric of the State. I thought the color in these pictures quite exceptional especially the interior pictures revealing plenty of detail (helped by the three hundred screen Diamani used for the printing). The book is more than just a collection of seventy-nine photos because Moore goes the extra mile and makes notes of his work and thirteen back pages have thumbnails and some quite detailed background about each image.
The book is the third in the photographer's in-depth look at America. The two previous titles: Detroit Disassembled-2010 and Dirt Meridian-2015 (both published by Damiani) and now with Blue Alabama show that Moore knows how to capture the essence of quite different locations.
