But Still, It Turns: A manifesto for photography by Paul Graham

We were told that documentary photography often corresponds with ‘traditional photography’. Probably in art schools it is still taught this way. The majority of photographs we all remember are, at the end of the day, documentary photographs: fragments of time witnessing a remarkable event, resulting in an unforgettable picture. But it’s not only a matter of iconic images that go down in history: there is probably another way to conceive visual storytelling, a photographic approach that portrays the world as-it-is. Glimpses of everyday life framed in a defined portion of space. In-between moments frozen as raw memories in our mind.This subtle sensitivity to the unfiltered nature of reality is what But Still, It Turns stems from. This book, curated and edited by British artist and photographer Paul Graham, represents a revitalising manifesto for photography. Conceived as a deposition for the future, the project features the work of nine artists who guide us through the randomness of life and “struggle with seeing through the fog of the present,” as Graham himself states in his introduction essay.Without giving in to the temptation to the artifice of the studio or to the manipulation of images, these projects go beyond the traditional idea of documentary as we know it. They capture the nuances of a photographic form that originates from the attention to the knots and tangles of life. In fact, Paul Graham brought together a constellation of works creating a map useful to explore an underrated aspect of contemporary photography. Featured in But Still, It Turns, there is Gregory Halpern’s dreamy California of ZZYZX; Vanessa Winship’s empathic project she dances on Jackson; the intimate portraits of Curran Hatleberg’s Lost Coast; Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa’s rich and countless One Wall a Web; the mortality-tinged America of Richard Choi’s What Remains; RaMell Ross’ visionary documentary work South County; the collaborative project Index G by Emanuele Bruti & Piergiorgio Casotti; and Kristine Potter’s exploration of the American landscape and masculinity in Manifest.Alongside the photographic works, in-depth essays by Paul Graham, Rebecca Bengal, RaMell Ross, and Ian Penman enrich the book, making it a fully-fledged research tool that takes stock of non-conventional ways of picturing the world.Borrowing the words murmured by Galileo after being forced to withdraw his astronomical theories, Paul Graham suggests to us that the world we live…

—

Source: vogue.it