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Mon 19 Apr 2021 02.00 EDT
Geoff Dyer first became interested in photography not by looking at photographs but by reading about other people looking at them. That meant the holy trinity of seers: Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and John Berger. For Dyer, the most inspirational of these three was Berger, about whom he wrote his first book,
Ways of Telling, 35 years ago, and from whom he learned his habits as a critic â always letting the evidence of his eyes have precedence over theory, and bringing what psychologists like to call âhis whole selfâ to the task at hand. In Bergerâs writing, that had invariably meant something soulful and learned, almost sculptural in intent. Dyerâs sensibility is more fleeting and alive to comic ironies; his writing dramatises both a restless attention, and the moments it is stopped in its tracks. He shares with his mentor, however, that autodidactâs sense of bringing his singular frame of reference to bear on a singular f
Geoff Dyer is telling me about his Covid-19 vaccination. âAbout two or three weeks ago, suddenly the whole vaccine thing exploded, and I was inundated. It was like when I used to get invited to literary festivals â suddenly I was inundated with invitations to have a vaccine!â
Dyer has just published his third photography book, See/Saw: Looking at Photographs (after The Ongoing Moment and The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand). Reading this book is, simply put, a pleasurable experience, recalling Wildeâs image of the critic as artist. In writing criticism, I ask, is it important for him to achieve an aesthetic quality?
Chloe Dewe Mathews s Sweeping Chronicle of the River Thames aperture.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from aperture.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.