Anonymous

"Anonymous", by Robert Flynn Johnson, is a collection of photographs taken by anonymous photographers. Most of these captured moments occurred sometime in the early twentieth century. Immediately I wanted to call the book a breath of fresh air, but that's too tepid. I’d say it’s more of a kind of hurricane that rejuvenates rather than destroys, leaving in its wake a clean, freed-of-human-junk landscape and upgraded homes.

The photographs were all taken for fun and/or someone's family photo album, rather than for commerce. There was not a trace of self-consciousness, taking me back eons to a time when I just drew, painted, and took photographs merely for fun. What’s fun for me? I looked for the photographs I wish I’d taken.

An African American boy of about seven or eight, a pacifier in his mouth, holds a rifle.

Holding a scythe like the grim reaper, a white-bearded elderly man on an antique three-wheeler bike, looks over his shoulder at a little girl standing next to her relatively “contemporary” model bicycle.

A middle-aged man, dressed like a lord of a manor, rides an ostrich.

An elderly man in a cart drives the team of pigs that pull it.

The most intense photograph for me was the scene of an automobile accident that decapitated the driver, his head lying on the road a few feet from the wrecked car. It looked as if a photojournalist or a police photographer took the image. I am glad not to have been that photographer. I probably would have fainted or vomited.

Out of all the images in the book, I wish I’d taken only four. Why those? I think that they are strictly first-class photojournalism, all telling a story literally or metaphorically. All other aesthetic considerations are limited by the amount of time the photographer has to take the photograph.

I recommend “Anonymous” to photojournalists.

Information:

“anonymous: enigmatic images from unknown photographers”, edited by Robert Flynn Johnson. Paperback edition published in 2005 by Thames and Hudson, New York, New York 10110.