[Leica] Natchwey's Inferno

[Paul Chefurka <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>]

Hmmm.  What to say, what to say?  Everybody happy tonight?

I just received my copy of James Natchwey's "Inferno".

I was pretty excited, going to pick up the parcel - Chapters Online had come
through in record time.  It was quite a heavy parcel: an innocuous brown
cardboard box.  Bigger than I expected.

I brought it home, cut the tape, removed the packing and pulled out a
cellophane-wrapped book.  Natchwey had said in the interview I read that he
wanted a book people couldn't ignore - one they had to deal with; so he made
it big and heavy.  He succeeded.

I unwrapped it.  The cover is imposing:  somber and tasteful in black cloth,
like an expensive funeral parlor.  "Quite the presentation" I said to myself
as my wife and I settled down on the living room floor.

I opened the cover.


Sweet Jesus.


I remember my sister hitting me with a baseball bat once when we were kids,
by accident.  Natchwey did not do this by accident.

As we looked through the first dozen photos I had this curious feeling of
being sucked out of my body through the eyes, down through the page surface
and into the mouth of hell.  Trite phrase?  You try looking at this stuff,
you try coming up with something snappy and original.

Plowing ahead, past picture after picture, I found my hands less and less
able to turn the pages.  Paralyzed by the moral implications, I suppose.
All I know is that having to look at each picture for longer and longer just
made it worse.  It didn't even help that after a while I couldn't see the
photos very clearly any more.

Finally, in self-defense, I tried to look at them technically.  Perfect
compositions.  Every one a decisive moment.  Perfect technique - razor sharp
eyes, long tonal ranges.  Dispassionate, the photographer not needing to
editorialize except through his presence and his willingness to take the
pictures.  My self-imposed detachment held me together for another dozen
images.

We looked at 60 pages out of 500.  I have no idea how long it's going to
take me to get through this book.  I can't believe there's a book like this
on the market, and I'll be eternally grateful to Tim Atherton for posting
the link to the interview that inspired me to buy it.

This is the hardest book I've ever tried to look at.  I'll think of it as
calisthenics for my conscience - maybe that will help.  Would I recommend
it?  Not on your life.  If this is your sort of book, you won't need my
recommendation.

Paul Chefurka