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"an exquisite collection of antique vernacular photographs of Halloweens past"--Boing Boing
Book Description
A collection of anonymous Hallowe'en Photographs from America, c.1875 - 1955
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Americana gone weird,
By
This review is from: Haunted Air (Hardcover)
It's all there in the subtitle - 'A Collection of Anonymous Hallowe'en Photographs America c. 1875 - 1955' ... this is a wonderful book, culled from Ossian Brown's collection of Halloween photos from the America of yesteryear.Deeply weird and strangely poignant, these anonymous images are strongly redolent of the work of Diane Arbus or Charles Gatewood (minus the body -modification and full-on nudity, of course), naive but at the same time very sinister. It's the homespun quality, both of the photos themselves and of the costumes that imply these qualities. A small child dressed up as a cat appears to be about to take a leak against a gatepost, an older youth (in pantaloons?) wearing a dog's head poses against a rural backdrop, a small boy in carnival mask poses between two older boys - the photo carries the dedication "the one that scares you is Donnie", but which one is Donnie - and what did he get up to? Almost every image here implies something odd is about to happen, just seconds after the photo was taken. But what? That's up to you. Most of these photos appear to be taken in the 'burbs - what was going on in small town America? Is it any wonder that David Lynch was sufficiently enamoured to write a (typically odd) foreword? Ossian Brown is a polymath - artist, occultist, collector and musician, most notably with Coil and Cyclobe, and he has put together a memorable collection of images.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Creeping Horror Of The Everyday,
By
This review is from: Haunted Air (Hardcover)
Ossian Brown's incredible collection of found Halloween pictures is an absolute must for anyone with an affinity for the extraordinary. Looking through this book is like stumbling across a bizarre family album depicting an alternate reality where the American suburbs of yesteryear were descended upon by gangs of diminutive creatures somehow captured on film before they retreated into the shadows.The sepia-toned, awkwardly-framed and hazy images convey a nightmarish intensity. Many of these photographs predate the mass production of Halloween masks and costumes, lending the crudely improvised outfits a genuinely sinister aura. Most chillingly of all, these evil clowns, merry demons and hessian-cowled figures inhabit the everyday: they pose on picket-fenced lawns, leaf-strewn porches and in living rooms, nestled comfortably in rocking chairs beside the fireplace. This beautiful hardback is bound in appropriately sombre black cloth, with each photograph presented uncropped, one per page. David Lynch fittingly contributes the introduction (who better to preface a collection of images conveying the creeping, fantastical dread lurking behind the seemingly everyday?). Geoff Cox's eloquent afterword poetically traces the origins of Halloween, the ancient tradition reinterpreted most wondrously of all in America. Thanks to Ossian Brown, this long-dead group of disparate amateur photographers and their subjects have created the best photography book of 2010. "Haunted Air" belongs in the library of anyone with an interest in photography and the shadows that lurk within.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sublime,
By
This review is from: Haunted Air (Hardcover)
With a backdrop of Southern dirt farms, barren dry landscapes this collection of photographs are horrifying. The images look like the kind of nightmarish figures that you catch out of the corner of your eye. The sort of images that shouldn't be able to be caught on camera. Whilst looking at them for a time you feel that some figure in a blacked up face, conical hat and blank eyes could be staring through the window and vanish as you glance up. A genuinely disturbing book , a must.
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