The Silver Cord: Photographs [Hardcover]

David Armstrong (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

David Armstrong's photos have garnered critical raves over the past decade, and this collection provides ample supporting evidence. Amazingly tactile and vibrant, Armstrong's photos--a mix of realistic portraits of mostly young men, interspersed with dreamlike location images--bring us into a dream world created by the artist out of his sexual desires and experiences. The Silver Cord manages to be sexy without ever being overtly sexual, romantic without being sentimental.

Review

... Armstrong makes misty, moody, painterly pictures that drag the viewer in, back into private memories and dreams.... Armstrong's portraits seal a perfect past in amber, while his diaphanous landscapes beckon with the promise of possibility. -- The New York Times Book Review, Jake Miller

David Armstrong's photography resonates with a calm intensity. It both subtle and strong, subdued, yet infused with an intense longing. the photographs are divisible as landscape and portrait, yet is is through looking at both that one comes to understand the connection, the evocative quality of Armstrong's work. The portraits are highly personal, and specific, while the landscapes are otherworldly. The Silver Cord showcase 85 duotone photographs spread over 128 pages. The Silver Cord will strengthen any serious academic, professional, or personal photography bookshelf. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Scalo Publishers; 1st Scalo Ed edition (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3931141489
• ISBN-13: 978-3931141486
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 9.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,016,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Strangely unsatisfying., October 22, 2009

By 

Andrew B. Hurvitz (Van Nuys, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Silver Cord: Photographs (Hardcover)

I recently discovered David Armstrong's work in VMan (Fall 2009) with his photo essay of actor Penn Badgley. I'm a big fan of Paul Jasmin and Bruce Weber and thought that Armstrong might be in that vein.

This book is a strange and unsatisfying amalgam of beautifully composed portraits and out-of-focus street scenes. Compared to a book like Jasmin's LOST ANGELS, where the scenic shots of Los Angeles set the mood and logically co-exist with portraits of the Hollywood young, there is absolutely no discernible connection between the men and women in this book and the blurry images of buildings dropped into the mix.

Naturally, there is an essay by Nan Goldin in which she applauds his soft focus buildings and crisp portraits by calling this jumble of inarticulate editing a "subjective nature of all reality". Sometimes, too much can be explained and extrapolated in a photograph, and those critics who write about photography are outstanding geniuses at creating meaning and pretentious analogies where none might exist at all.

I would like to add that while I do not like this book, I generally love most of Mr. Armstrong's work. My criticisms are directed at the way this particular book, "The Silver Cord" was assembled, in a language and style that is only understandable by the photographer and which does not speak clearly or understandably enough to the viewer.