Raising Frogs for $ $ $
February 11th, 2008by Jason Fulford
ISBN: 0977648117
I was quite taken with Crushed, so knew I’d get Fulford’s next photography book. Then I saw the title (and cover — something straight out of a school library) and was charmed. I get a fair amount of new or new to me books. Of course I buy them because I think they are interesting, and that I will like them if not love them. And every once in awhile, a book doesn’t just captivate me, it seems to sing to me.
Just me. I know literally this is not true, but I also know that everyone who hears it feels that way. It’s hard to explain, and when it happens to me, it’s usually novels or short stories — narratives with words. I’m unsure how to talk about it, other than to say that Raising Frogs for $ $ $ was one of those books.
Not every book that sings is something I wind up loving; some times it works out that way, and sometimes I’m a bit disappointed because the song isn’t what I thought it was. What I enjoyed here is that Fulford provides a framework so I can feel as though I’m telling myself a story, over and over until it feels right and the ending works. The square photographs reveal mostly but not entirely depopulated, extraordinarily ordinary scenes that evoke an odd kind of nostalgia. I found myself trying to fall back to childhood to make sense of what I saw, back when being baffled wasn’t necessarily scary or bad, and the sense things would click into place any second now because I almost had it happened more often.
Fulford’s humor is in evidence, with the pointed end of a fence post looking like a giant pencil and the plastic Canadian geese shot from geese ass level. Single images that stood out for me were the pink blooming tree in Gettysburg, the twisting trees in Montauk, an empty but favored chair in Paris, and the shot up car in Kentucky, yet listing them like this feels like I’m quoting out of context. The short section of diptychs were my favorites, the way the colors and lines played off each other on the facing pages fascinated me.
If you are looking for something different, something more playful and with more personality than a typical coffee table art book, try Fulford’s quirky work. Recommended.
