Life and Still Life

I love Toni Catany's work so liked some of the images in here, but on the whole I wasn't overly keen on the technique he was using in the prints in this book.

The Mallorcan photographer Toni Catany (b. 1942) won the European Publishers' Award for Photography 1997 with this collection.The photos have a soft look but still with a feeling of depth - they are very gentle, offsetting the directness with which Catany poses his subjects. He uses, apparently, a Polaroid 609 and then transfers the image onto watercolour paper or natural silk, based on a technique called the calotype, an early rival of the daguerrotype. But one can love the effect without understanding the technical processes - fantastic portraits, often of African young men, or Venezuelan, or Spanish, and sometimes women too, taking in a wider range in fewer photos; photos from India and Mexico - essentially places where it is hot. The subjects are posed in an improvised way, often against walls with some kind of peeling or imperfection, but a superb, airy texture that seems redolent of the heat. There are also some still lifes of fruit and bowls, some figures prone again in magical settings. It is all quite understated, and bold at the same time, reproduced large. Life looks great like this!