From Back Home

©Anders Petersen

Just received a crisp new copy in the post all the way from Sweden of the Anders Petersen/JH Engström book, From Back Home. When I first set eyes on this book in Arles last year I knew I had to own it. The wonderful thing is I will be reviewing this book for 1000 Words. Anders, who I first met in a late night Paris bar in the Bastille, muttering 'things are as they are', is far from a conceptual photographer 'artist' which is probably why, although shortlisted, this influential photographer did not make it to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize finalists. The fashion these days is for deadpan, emotionless photography, clean, neat, generic, sterile and, dare I say it... smug. Any engagement with the spontaniety of life is apparently, for the most part, redundant. Probably doesn't look good on corporate walls.