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Book: Meridian Photgrapher: Colin Stearns Review by: Christian Michael Filardo

To me most good photographs are about photography in one way or another. Often nodding in acknowledgement towards the past while looking towards the future to establish a new form of visual aesthetics. In Colin Stearns’s new book “Meridian” from Rita Books we experience the subtle power of an individual with the ability to create a dialogue between photographic history and contemporary black and white photography.

At first glance Stearns’s book feels like a collection of black and white snapshots taken across various film formats while the photographer bounced between rural and urban environments. However, upon further inspection one begins to hear the conversation Stearns’s photographs are having with the photographic past. Stearns’s knowledge of exposure and understanding of repetition turns a man waiting for the train into a businessman disintegrating into the void. A small sequence of photographs that feels like a nod to legend Duane Michal’s photographic sequence “The Human Condition”. Time and time again it feels like Stearns is looking towards the masters for advice while developing his own voice. Occasionally Stearns’s bleached out landscapes remind me of Minor White’s “Windowsill Daydreaming” stirring up feelings of nostalgia and reinforcing one’s natural curiosity of time within the photographic language.

Academia aside it feels as if Stearns is beginning to share his own unique vision with the world. He has a good sense of composition and understands how to turn light into magic. While the feeling of transience is omnipresent in “Meridian”, Stearns’s manages to feel more like a resident than a tourist. Doric columns mirror enormous shrubs while cold beaches and giant boulders snuggle up with rooftops and bare apartments.

Ultimately, Meridian feels advanced and relatable. It exists as a meditation on the fundamental elements of what makes photography important. The quiet and subtle power contained in this monograph is rare and it transforms Meridian from a simple perfect bound book into a monolith destined to exist outside of itself.

LS 23 | Japan SUBMISSION                                                      

Colin Stearns - The Memory of Kura Machi

LS 23 | Japan SUBMISSION                                                      

Colin Stearns - The Memory of Kura Machi

LS BOOKS                                                          

Colin Stearns - Meridian

LS BOOKS                                                          

Colin Stearns - Meridian