Book Review: New York through the Lens

New York Through the Lens

A Review of the Vivienne Gucwa Book

Written by Dan McDonald

 

            I was enthralled with the joy of discovering that inside a matryoshka doll was another that opened up to reveal another and then yet another within that one and even another one within that one. There is a delightful joy discovering hidden treasure as you move further and further inside a matryoshka doll set.

Matryoshka dollset photo downloaded from shuttertstock.com (blackboard 1965)

 

            That is the best I know how to introduce you to Vivienne Gucwa’s New York through the Lens. Opening the pages of her book is something like a child discovering the joy of discovering a whole set of matryoshka dolls inside what seemed like one small ornament.

           

Photo of book as shown on Amazon.com

 

            The book seems like a nice book of photographs you would set out on your coffee table for guests and family members to thumb through.

            But if you start reading the opening pages she tells you a story of how she started taking photographs. It was during a stressful time of her life. She would just start walking. She had an inexpensive point and shoot camera. She would take it with her and take pictures of scenes that interested her. She would pick out a street to explore and start walking until it was time to return home. So within this book of photographs there was also a memoir of how photography provided a stressed soul with refreshment and healing.

            Then as you enjoy the memoir sort of feel to the book she tells how she fell in love with writing before she took up photography. You find she is writing in poetry, in fluid prose and in full fledged story-telling. The book is not simply a book of photographs but poetry and story-telling.

            I came into contact with the book at about the same time I was making my very first visit to New York City. She writes of the city as her hometown. To an outsider it is a huge city incapable of being grasped. But to a resident the city is more like a thousand villages interconnected by streets, sidewalks, taxis, buses, boats, tunnels, and subways. Each building and each scene is part of a village with a story in the context of the village in which it exists. The story-teller is a tour guide who has learned the history and dialects of the villages in which her scenes are set forth.

            There is one more thing we discover hidden in this beautiful book. The writer was an art lover as well as a photographer. This seems to tie all the pieces of photographer, memoir and story-teller writer, and tour guide together. This is all brought together in someone who loves the beauty of a scene as an art lover. Who else could better understand a scene than an art lover? I began to imagine the sort of art lover who would stand before a painting and try to draw every bit of it into their soul and imagination. I imagined a scene at the Metropolitan Art Museum. I imagined a father taking his two children to the museum.

            The father wants his children to learn to appreciate art. But the father is not so much a lover of art as he is someone who knows that if his children are really going to be fully educated then they would understand beauty as well as goodness and truth. He feels a sense of weakness. He knows we should love beauty, but he is more moved by his sense of weakness that he does not truly appreciate beauty but wants his children to appreciate it. He is the sort of father who takes his children to the museum and then moves rapidly from room to room in the vain hope of showing them much instead of showing them a little but well.

            Then he sees a painting. It is a painting more in my imagination than I actually saw at the Metropolitan. The father sees this scene not so much of a painting but of a woman enthralled and seemingly held captive by the painting.

            She stands there looking at the painting. Looking isn’t the right word. She is studying the work of art. Neither is studying the right word. She stands as if her body is outside of the painting while her heart, mind and soul has been drawn into the painting. She is experiencing communion and union with this piece of art. The father realizes this woman loves art in the way he wishes he could.

            In my imagination, the father is prepared to walk past the woman without bothering her. But he feels that perhaps this woman could inspire his son and daughter more than he could if he simply asked her to tell his children about what she found so fascinating about this painting. He interrupted her and though she was a bit put out, she sought to honor the man's children.

            She spoke first to the little daughter as if to help her become interested in this art her dad wanted her to enjoy. She asked the daughter, “Do you see the man in the bottom left corner of the painting?” The little daughter looked and looked and then exclaimed as if excited, “The one with the red boot?”

            The woman standing smiled and said, “Exactly, the man with the red boot. He was hard to see, wasn’t he?” The little girl said, “Yes, I didn’t see him at all until I saw his red boot.”

            The art loving woman said, “I think this painter likes to play tricks on us. He makes the man hard to see with the forest behind him, but then he has him wear a red boot that stands out in comparison with everything else. He is playing games with us, I think." The daughter found that kind of funny that a painter would play games with people looking at his artwork.

            Then the woman asked the father's little boy, “What do you think the man in the painting is looking at?" The little boy said, "I don't really know. He is looking towards a direction but I don't see anything."

            The woman then was saying to  the son, “Do you see anything in the stream, that is on the right hand side of the painting. Is there anything in the stream the man might be looking at?” The boy seemed not to understand. But finally he said, “There's a little boat.”

            The woman smiled and said, “There is a toy boat but there are no children playing with it. Where do you think the children are?" The boy didn't know. So she asked whether the boat was going towards the man in the painting or away from him away and out of the painting.The boy answered, “It is coming towards the man.”

            She then could say, “If the boat is just now coming into the painting? Where do you think the children are? Use your imagination."

            The boy looked sad as if he was failing to get the right answer for his teacher. He finally said with his head down, "I don't see any children. I don't see them." The woman said to the little boy, "Don't feel bad. I think the painter is playing games. He has the man in the red boot looking towards children who had put a toy boat in the water, but the children aren't in the painting. You can only see them by your imagination. He is playing a game. After this the boy and his sister were looking at the painting to see everything they could notice. They were making a game of it saying "I see this."

            While the children played their game, and being careful not to try to touch anything, the woman said to their father, “I love this painting. I know it isn't the title but I call it the "Always more" painting. It is like the artist wants us to know that there is always more in every scene. He also wants us to know that there is always more than the scene that we see today." She then said, "Sometimes I just come here to look at this painting because I want to remind myself that there is always something more." After that it seemed like the woman was ready to go home.

            In real life I have never met a woman like that one studying the "always more" piece of art. But in my imagination that would be the kind of woman who would give to the world such a simple, beautiful and profound gift; as you will find if you discover New York through the Lens by Vivienne Gucwa.

 

Rather than post any of Vivienne Gucwa’s photographs here is a link to her blog where she provides a number of wonderful examples. http://nythroughthelens.com A link for her book is provided on that site at http://nythroughthelens.com/book


 The book is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other book stores.