Thinky Guy

One of the treats of reading is stumbling on someone who can 'splain things.

Geoff Dyer wrote a book on photography last year called the ongoing moment. It's one of my favorite books of all time already. Let me try to tell you why I'm so enamoured with him and this book.

First, I love photography but it often makes little sense to me. Who doesn't like illuminated manuscripts? Who takes the time to read the suckers and make some sense of how the images amplify the text? Not me, pictures too shiny! I have a similar problem with photography. Shiny becomes the meaning. Dreaming becomes the meaning. That might be enough.

There's also my problem with history. I'm foolish enough to think that I should be able to look at a picture and determine why it's a significant image. It does not work that way. Even for someone with solid visual pitch.

Dyer is a curious, smart fellow who wonders why hats figure so prominently in so many important photographs. Yes, there's a section on that. Why is that Steiglitz dude so important? Yes, he nailed O'Keeffe, but there's got to be something more. He's at the root of influence and he wanted to be the dominant source in American photography. Dyer spends a lot of time jamming pieces of his intellectual jigsaw together. Most of the pieces fit smoothly and his puzzle is a delightful one. You can trace influence and discourse in pictures clearly. He makes his analysis look precise as well. Can you explain to me how someone can talk about hats as symbols precisely?

It's not just that he lays the theme of influence out with such style. He also loves reading for the code behind objects featured again and again throughout the history of photography. His method of reading is so slick that I found myself just nodding. I've reread as much as I've read.

He's helping me see what happens in these shiny pictures, unfreezing them. His playful approach encourages me to pick up a piece of the puzzle and see if I can figure out where it goes. As any puzzle addict can tell you, it's as much about touching and examining each piece as it is finding where it goes.