"What Would Sudek Do?"

MEG member Michael Borek shares a connection with famed photographer, Josef Sudek. Is that why he named his new show, What Would Sudek Do? Get the details below.

When I was a teenager growing up in Prague, I used to see a one-armed man in a shabby coat schlepping a tripod and a large-view camera. A friend told me that it was Josef Sudek, a famous Czech photographer. I—a young and fledgling photographer—bought a book of his pictures and immediately fell in love. I was smitten with the photographs Sudek had taken through the windows of his studio. They were simple and beautiful.

I wished I were able to take such pictures. But I felt that Sudek had a competitive advantage. While I lived with my parents in an anonymous, uninspiring, Communist-built housing project, Sudek’s surroundings were clearly poetic. He had only to point his camera and release the shutter to create his beautiful art. Many years later, when I finally visited Sudek’s studio, I realized how wrong I was. This place was not at all poetic. No photographer would be inspired to take pictures there. At least, not before Sudek did it so masterfully. Sudek had an unmatched ability to notice sublime details, to include what is important, and to eliminate what is not. He created his own world in which the surrounding are only supporting actors.

Now, many photographers imitate his style. Even though I borrowed his name for the title of this exhibition, and as a Czech photographer I may have a little of Sudek in my DNA, I hope that I am not one of them. Rather, in this exhibition, I attempt to inspire viewers to reflect on the beauty that can be found in the places they see every day and no longer even notice. Or, to borrow from Thoreau, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” So whenever I end up in seemingly uninspiring places that feel visually dull, I think of the old maestro’s dilapidated studio, open my eyes a bit wider, and ask myself:  What Would Sudek Do?

I printed all these photographs in small sizes (5” x 7.5”) for two main reasons. First, this is an homage to Sudek’s work, and most of his photographs were small contact prints. Second, lately I have felt that the works of contemporary photographers are often huge for no obvious reason other than they can be. As if bigger automatically means better. Some of these giant photographs remind me of the callouts in newspaper articles that summarize the whole article, so that there is no reason even to bother to read it – particularly given our short attention spans and the many things competing for our time. These little prints are not meant to be contrarian. Rather, I hope that their size will entice the viewer to come closer and spend some time with them, instead of skimming them as a “summary” from a distance.

Keep your eyes (and mind) open!

Attracted to desolate areas? MEG member Eric Johnson shares his experience in two virtual ghost towns in California. 

The area around the Salton Sea in southern California has long held an attraction for many photographers for its collection of semi-abandoned towns and its atmosphere of post-apocalyptic desolation.  The Salton Sea was formed in 1905 when springtime flooding breached irrigation canals along the Colorado River, inundating approximately 900 square miles of the Imperial Valley.  Development around the new lake began in the 1920s, making the Salton Sea a popular tourist destination for people from nearby Palm Springs and Los Angeles. 

Increasing agriculture in the Imperial Valley led to decreased water inflow into the lake.  At the same time, prehistoric salt beds under the lake increased its salinity, and the shore of the lake began to recede, leaving behind an inhospitable, salt-encrusted landscape.  All of these environmental changes made the Salton Sea less viable as a tourist destination, and the towns around the lake began their decline.  

While on a trip to southern California last October, I made a side trip to two of these towns, Bombay Beach and Salton Sea Shores.  I went with the intention of photographing some of the decaying structures in these soon-to-be ghost towns, and I certainly found what I was looking for, spending most of my brief visit there photographing abandoned residential and commercial buildings.  Each of the two towns has an odd mixture of occupied and abandoned blocks, with the blocks near the water being generally deserted, and the blocks closer to the roads into and out of town more populated.  However, despite clear signs of human habitation (cars in driveways, well-tended yards) in the more lived-in sections of town, I did not see more than two or three people the entire afternoon.  That may be attributable to desert dwellers’ reluctance to go out in the mid-afternoon sun, but whatever the reason, the whole area was eerily quiet, which even in the occupied parts of town.  This quiet only accentuated the feeling of being in a ghost town.