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Men Like Me.
Photographs and text by Bill Jay.
Nazraeli Press,
Tucson,
2005.
52 pp., 40 duotone plates, 6½x9".
At the risk of sounding soft and sentimental, this is a beautiful,
soulful, poignant little book. Jay has earned his place
in the pantheon of photographic critics by dint of decades
of dedicated iconoclasm, but his own work as a photographer,
other than his 1983 book of portraits, has been
relatively seldom seen. Men Like Me should be a brisk
awakening to anyone who thinks that those who can't
make art, write about it instead. Jay’s routine has been to
walk around his adopted Southern California beachside
town at dawn, photographing the weathered walls and
alleys, and the equally weathered men who live there. The
men are down and out (or outright homeless), and Jay has
made a strong series of close-ups of the arroyos and
whiskery groundcover that surround their open, knowing
eyes. The black-and-white portraits are juxtaposed with
color images of the alleys, and all of the pictures are tied
together with bits of the conversations Jay has had with
these men. This is a risky aesthetic combination, but Jay’s
skill as an image maker and writer, and his empathy with
the men, ties the whole package together to form an
affecting whole. The book isn’t a documentary or a social
polemic, and doesn't feel like it panders to its subjects. As
the title suggests, Jay is simply drawn to the men he
photographs because he senses his kinship with them. In
fact, part of the power of the book lies in what the
photographer reveals about himself between the lines: an
admiration for men who’ve seen some of the worst that
life can dish out and still retained their self-respect; and the
all-too-realistic fear that, should we fall away from the
small world that knows and cares for us, we may well be
left to die alone and unremembered. PHIL HARRIS
Read Publisher's Description.
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