Customer Reviews

Shards of America

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Canadian Phil Bergerson continues the American tradition of photographing messages in public places. The sixty photo spreads in the book all contain some sort lettering: either commercially printed or hand created which appear in shop windows or in the environment. David Harris writes in his excellent intro that the flow of images creates a visual framework with each spread deliberately contrasting their two photos. Some of this is not immediately apparent in the same way that not every photo in 'William Eggleston's Guide' slots into place on the first look through.

So many of Bergerson's photos pull you into the composition. Page forty-eight shows a cash register and liquor bottles in a bar with various printed messages on the wall behind and on the register, or the roadside on page eighty-eight with a vertical pole almost splitting the photo in two and various signs stretching into the distance both compositions, cropping and the deep saturated colors just seem so right. I thought the amount of detail in each photo very impressive, all the more so because every shot has been taken in a public place where anyone could have seen what Bergerson has seen but mostly we just pass it by and it's only when the same view is placed on a page that the ordinary reveals more.

Overall I thought this was a wonderful set of photos and the book is typical of the high standards you would expect from the Quantuck. Laura Lindgren (who has designed other Quantuck titles) does the usual impressive layout and typography and the Italian printer Mondadori (matt art with 175 screen) completes the package.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.

Phil Bergerson's square color photographs show that he has a sensitive eye for the unusual, the intriguing, the ironic in American life. His sensibility brings to mind that of other contemporary photographers, Elliott Erwitt and Lee Friedlander. The book is a delight.