Time Frames: City Pictures (PH Classic)

By: Spano, Michael

Time Frames, Michael Spano's long-awaited first monograph, catalogues the artist's exploration of spatial and temporal dimensions in photography. The book is divided into five chapters: "Panoramas", "Grids", "Portraits", "Multi-Exposures", and "Diptychs"; each employs a distinctive technical process to provide a new way of looking at life in New York City. "Panoramas" (1977-1983) show interacting urbanites moving through elongated frames as the lens of an extremely wide field camera pans during exposure. "Grids" (1980-1990) captures eight moments on a single negative as Spano moves through a sequence of events, pre-determinedly exposing a portion of the grid every four seconds. "Portraits" (1984-1990) focus on individual inhabitants transformed and etched out from their settings through the solarization and blurring forms into an atmospheric world. "Multi-Exposures" (1985-1998) combine solarizations with multiple perspectives. These single-negative layered compositions orchestrate and compress selected intervals of time and space into one image. "Diptychs" (1998-1999) fuse two distinct moments on one negative where scale, focal planes, and perspectives shift and comprise a dual image of urban spaces.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1576873927
• ISBN13: 9781576873922
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: powerHouse Books
• Length: 109 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.8" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Very Well Done Photography Book

I bought this book not long ago, and I really enjoy it. The photographs are both beautiful and mysterious. It is a must for anyone with an interest in artistic photography. Each photo tells a story...gives you a hint of a life. Spano is a great photgrapher of his time. I'm very interested in his other books and work. Buy it! It's great.

urban alive

Spano's work is unique and attuned to the urban experience. Through a multiplicity of approaches, he throws himself--camera lens first--into the continual flux, ego, and uncertainty that is New York and comes away with a document that breaths city. His techniques often require him to work intuitively across a flowing landscape, yet he continually matches the certainty and eloquence of photographers who spend hours on their compositions. It is photography that is--like the city he records over fixed time and changing light--familiar and yet often disturbing round the edges.