Book Review: Richard Benson: North South East West

Hi-grade commonplace

I noticed in Benson's superb analysis about the history of printed images: The Printed Picture, that he used several of his own photos to illustrate contemporary printing techniques. This book, with 105 of his photos, confirms that as well as an authority on printing he can also take wonderful pictures.

The images are a selection of the natural environment and man-made commonplace. The latter are easily comparable to the work of Brouws, Eggleston, Plowden, Shore and Tice in my view. So many of the shots are rich in detail, color and perfect framing and like those I've mentioned Benson has the eye to capture something so everyday and visually ordinary but presented as a compelling image that is worth returning to over and over.

There is something extra in many of these photos though. They are the kind that the graphic arts industry uses to sell their product. It has to be a great shot with: texture; color; depth; clarity. You'll see them sparkle on beautiful papers using the finest four color screens and printed by craftsmen on quality presses. The book, of course, is a good example of this.

The landscape format works well with the one photo to a page though eight pages each have two uprights and printed in an impressively fine screen (three hundred+ I think). There is a little extra feature in the book, ten pages at the back where Benson writes about his many years exploring the art of photography and the printing press. I thought this was a lovely addition to come across after looking through the pages of his work.

Richard Benson: North South East West is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

A spread from the ten page essay at the back of the book where Benson writes about photos and printing them.

There are four spreads like this with two uprights a page.

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