Ralph Gibson: The Spirit of Burgundy (Aperture,1995)

Ralph Gibson has carried on a lifelong love affair with France, passionately observing and recording the country's character through its most intimate details. In The Spirit of Burgundy, the photographer gives us his unforgettable chronicle of a year in one of France's most culturally rich and visually stunning regions. A woman's profile, fleetingly glimpsed; the rugged tapestry of vineyards and the chance combination of colors at a Dijon festival; gleaming necklaces and the heel of a shoe; the shape of a wine bottle and the sensuous pattern of lace curtains - the images in The Spirit of Burgundy capture the essence of their setting. In 86 color and 68 black-and-white duotone photographs, Gibson celebrates Burgundy. Local cuisine, architecture, customs, wine cultivation, landscape, and the Burgundians themselves are ongoing visual themes that produce a witty portrait: sensual but never sentimental, both stark and lush, earthy and enigmatic.

[@nickfanzo]

Definitely prefer his grainy black and white film photos vs the color and digital works

[@andras_ikladi]

In conclusion, I feel the same way - but in my case, it's not necessarily the medium or the colour itself. He always has been balancing along the reality/representation vs abstraction axis in his work, and personally, I'm happiest when he remains closer to a grain of (implied) narrative rather than going too abstract. For this reason, I prefer works like the early Black Trilogy (Somnambulist, Deja Vu, Days at Sea) vs something like the Black series (extremely abstract architectural details), even though they're not that far apart in time. Black and white (and grain, heavy shadows hiding detail) allow more content to be maintained and remain somewhat abstract, colour being a step closer to reality. But he also has colour work that remains in that zone I prefer: his Tropical Drift book, some spreads in Brazil, some of the more recent (digital) Sacred Land and even a few images in this book. But as his career and vision developed, he not only drifted to colour, to digital but also towards abstraction. So, I'm not sure what's at play. Is it the medium or the vision? Another thing: In my opinion, this book edit is not that successful. I understand he developed this approach to documenting (his relationship to) a place (Spirit of Burgundy, Brazil), but both suffer from too many images, too loose layout and losing unity by mixing 3-4 different styles. Some sections work well, but then some spreads almost become a guidebook to the region. As a guidebook, this works very well though, I think he captured the region in a sensitive way. But I would still prefer Pharaonic Light (shot in Egypt that has a more unified grainy b&w style).

[@user-ie4yq1mz5p]

Thank you('◇')ゞ