People whose occupation allows to travel all over the world get almost infinite opportunities to take very diverse and striking images. With that thought in mind, I opened ‘Destroyed’ - the book which includes 55 photographs taken by Moby. As a touring musician he visited many countries and wanted to document at least some of his wanderings. In the foreword Moby mentions his long-standing interest in photography, and how life on the road enabled him to pursue this hobby.
“I wanted to put out a book of tour photos, because touring is strange. I hope that somehow in these pictures I am able to convey the mundanity of touring as juxtaposed with those moments of the disconcerting and/or sublime. one minute on tour you’re by yourself in a soul-less backstage area, the next minute you’re on stage in front of 75,000 people”.
The idea sounded good in theory, because as a music photographer myself I deal with very similar subject matter: airports, hotel rooms, music venues and city views. So I was interested to see how a musician would photograph such environment. Despite containing several visually strong images, in general this book failed to meet my expectations. All in all, a lot of images looked somewhat 'accidental' and lacked real artistic value. Of course it would be unfair to treat a musician like a photographer, however this photo book seems to be aimed mostly at Moby’s fanbase and not general public.
Moby, 2011, Destroyed. Damiani, Bologna, Italy
It makes you wonder how much Moby really ever wanted to publish these images, and how much would have been about some producer or manager wanting to make some extra money. Pretty confident in knowing that there would be thousands of people who would buy the book purely because the man has a huge following and they would buy anything he put out. I like the idea though, the concept of the juxtaposition between the spotlight and the darkness.
ReplyDeleteImagine Terry Richardson put out an album. It would probably sell a million copies.
I can actually imagine him doing this. But who knows? Maybe he can sing.