Not just a book review - Two Rivers by Carolyn Drake

I was fortunate to have met Carolyn Drake in person when I attended an one semester workshop at the renown Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, ME. In fact, Carolyn is the girlfriend of the photo teacher who taught at that institute.

Not only do I admire her work and style but also her as a person.
Even though she has worked for Time, the New Yorker and is now a full time staff for National Geographic, she still always worked on personal projects on the side - which I think is very important for you as an artist in order to always being challenged and pushed to grow.

For the past 5 years she has been traveling to rural central Asia to document the life around two major rivers in that area: The Amu Darya and Syr Darya.



When I view work of art I eventually get to a point were imagine which of the pieces I looked at I would hang up in my own house. With most documentary photography I would have a issue hanging them up. Carolyn's work is different, each of these photographs are bilingual: journalistic and artistic.
I could imagine having her work hanging in my living room, even though I have no idea who the man in the orange car is.

But not only do her photographs and her character inspire me, but also how she closes the circle of her projects. In this case of "Two Rivers" even the design of the book makes so much sense.

When I received the book in the mail, which was a reward for the Kickstarter campaign she set up to publish the book, I thought "something went wrong" in the production... The pages are sticking out too far. Or the cover is not big enough. But once you start to flip through the book it all in a sudden makes total sense why she chose to design the book this way.

But I will let you paint your own picture, I will bring a copy of the book to class tomorrow and you can see for your self.