Favourites #3

Most months, some weeks, some days, I acquire a new favourite photographer. There is often something linking the majority of the photographers that I throw myself at like some horny teenager. A left of centre approach to documentary photography is usually the bottom line. An instinct for capturing intimacy, secrecy, moments of shared emotion. This week, my new favourite photographer is Olivia Arthur. Her work, particularly her images taken in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Georgia, are such a rich and strange insight into worlds that are often hidden behind doors. She is also involved in Fishbar, a pretty incredible photographer's space and small scale publisher. This week, she's got my heart.

Generosity

Gifts, true gifts, born from generosity and not obligation, always leave an echo in the heart.

A while ago, I posted a query to my weird online freakbook life about a book I was looking for - "Bons Baisers" - a published series of photographs of 'kisses' (interpreted in the loosest ways) by the photographers of Magnum agency. 

From nowhere, a friend from Paris contacted me to let me know that he'd found a copy and that he'd bought it for me. He was planning to send it, I was planning to send him money to send it, but we both got caught in the usual web of life. 

So, a month or two after our back and forth, we crossed paths while I was travelling, in a bar a long way from home, and he passed it to me after a handful of drinks, refusing my crummy materialistic gesture of covering his costs. I couldn't have been more affected... So, humble thanks, Genaro... You're a good man.

This is what the book that he holds in his hand looks like. It's fucking amazing.