PHOTO BOOKS: SNOW BY VANESSA WINSHIP
“As I drive out of town, the wind is picking up, lifting the powdery snow from the shrubs by the roadside and sending it swirling across the blacktop. I knew what I was looking for, but I see the sign just a moment too late. The road is tricky. I let the car slow to a walking pace before I brake.”Quote: Jem Poster.
Today, I want to talk about the latest monograph (2022) by Vanessa Winship, Snow.
Vanessa Winship is a British photographer who was the first woman to win the Henry Cartier-Bresson Prize. She has also won two World Press Photo Awards and a Sony Photo Award. She’s worked as a documentary photographer on long-term projects around the world, with a special focus on the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Turkey.
I was lucky enough to meet Vanessa and her husband, George Georgiu, a few years ago when they were doing a residency in Sardinia for a project commissioned by the Sardinia Foundation and Punctum Press. They’re an amazing couple, close-knit and tireless.
But now, let’s get to the book, Snow, published by DeadBeat Club in 2022. It has a soft cover, measuring 19.5 x 25 cm, with 104 pages. The only text in it is a story by Jem Poster.
It starts right away with a black-and-white portrait of a rock trapped among the trees, followed by a frozen puddle. Deserted places, from which the photographer keeps her distance. The experience feels immersive and slightly unsettling. The human element is almost absent, except for a short section.
A few pages in, the story by Jem Poster begins, telling the imaginary adventure of a British photographer, Anna Markham, in the cold interior of the American Midwest. The tension is palpable. A certain fascination with these places starts to emerge, both from the author and from Poster’s character. After an assignment in the Midwest, Vanessa would return to these places multiple times for her own personal exploration. She wanted to understand why she was so drawn to them.
The publisher’s opening text gives us an important clue about how to approach the book: “In Vanessa Winship’s latest monograph, we see that what is not entirely comprehended is far more compelling than what is well understood.”
I don’t want to spoil too much about this book because it’s too personal a story to be summed up in a few words. It’s about a place made up of fleeting memories from someone else’s past life: billboards, old warehouses, cold, desolate lands, and a group of people who seem out of time. The rest develops in our perception of an unknown place that feels almost familiar.
This is one of my favorite photography books. The fact that the photographs stand alone without any explanation is a key reason why I love it. What fascinates me most is what’s not shown in the book, allowing the imagination to picture the life in those desolate places and their shifting nature over time. This book has probably influenced my photographic language more than any other in recent times.
Check out the video about Snow on my YouTube channel.
Here is the link to publisher page where you can buy the book: DeadBeatClub.com
