Book Review: Vanishing Point by David Plowden
David Plowden: Vanishing Point
Fifty Years of Photography by David Plowden
W.W. Norton & Company, October 2007
340 pages/hardcover/280 duotone photographs/ $100.00
Pulling the cellophane wrap off of David Plowden: Vanishing Point feels like blowing away years of dust from an old box of keepsakes. Inside, the images taken by the prolific master photographer David Plowden have been righteously preserved. Plowden deserves a big heap of recognition with the publication of this tribute to his examination of America over the last half century. Journalist Steve Edwards reveals much we didn’t know about Plowden in the book’s introduction. For example, there is the impressive fact that he studied with Minor White, but what is more informative is to discover that when they first met, Plowden was so intimidated by White’s room displaying works by Edward Weston and Paul Caponigro, “I almost turned around and fled,” he says.
If rural America is disappearing, we can thank Plowden for steadily recording the forgotten pockets of the country for all these years. We have his fading images of ramshackle porches, abandoned factories, bar-and-grill waitresses, and a velvet upholstered chair in an Iowa living room surrounded by comforting touches. One day, photography enthusiasts might compare the photos of the Twin City bridge collapse on August 1, 2007 with those taken by Plowden of the rusted and worn steel sides of Chicago’s 100th Street Bridge. “What a wonderful, marvelous example of steelwork. We don’t make bridges like this anymore,” he said. His love of shooting bridges and the designs their rivets and bolts make has been the subject of his previous photographic books.
Above all, Plowden has been adamant that his technique should remain invisible; he insists that the subject is lost if technique overwhelms the picture. Yet the book ends with notes from Plowden about his experiments through many phases of equipment, films and developer temperatures. He explains that as his career winds down, he would like to share his years of experience however he can. This inclusion of his procedural journey as a photographer is just one of many compelling reasons for adding Vanishing Point to your book collection.
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