From the Archives, the latest release from Editions FP & CF, could describe an entire area of contemporary photography, peering into the medium’s past to survey its experiments and how they turned out.
Everything here began with the Flickr page of Don Hudson, an American photographer born in 1950 in Michigan. Maxime Milanesi and Claire Schvartz, founders of FP & CF, came upon a part of Hudson’s archives on the Internet and decided to gather fifteen years of them in a published book.
With its sober layout, From the Archives traces a part of the American twentieth century as seen by one man, alternating between domestic scenes, political rallies, fairs and American football games. Hudson’s photographs exist in a visual no man’s land, part documentary and part vision reminiscent of artists who accentuate the abnormal (one thinks of Arbus and Winogrand).
Accidents for Hudson are less dramatic, and less spectacular: they require more attention and can leave one cold. His framing can be awkward, and his subjects can be trivial. But more than any of the other greats of street photography, we project ourselves into his pictures. We see ourselves in the stadium stands, in the back of a convertible with a prom queen, standing next to a recent college graduate or walking alongside a mounted policeman. We swear that we, too, remember how the wind blew that flag against the cop’s face. And we’re delighted to hold in our hands a collection of memories imbued with new life and vitality.
Antoine Soubrier
From the Archives
Editions FP & CF
October 2012
700 ex, 28 euros
