Alex Webb: The Suffering of Light

The Suffering of Light is the first comprehensive monograph charting the career of acclaimed American photographer Alex Webb. Gathering some of his most iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth, this exquisite book brings a fresh perspective to his extensive catalog. Recognized as a pioneer of American color photography since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense color and light. His work, with its richly layered and complex composition, touches on multiple genres, including street photography, photojournalism, and fine art, but as Webb claims, "to me it all is photography. You have to go out and explore the world with a camera." Webb's ability to distill gesture, color and contrasting cultural tensions into single, beguiling frames results in evocative images that convey a sense of enigma, irony and humor. Featuring key works alongside previously unpublished photographs, The Suffering of Light provides the most thorough examination to date of this modern master's prolific, 30-year career. Alex Webb (born in San Francisco, 1952) has published more than fifteen books, including Aperture titles Brooklyn: The City Within (2019, with Rebecca Norris Webb), La Calle: Photographs from Mexico (2016), On Street Photography and the Poetic Image (2014, with Rebecca Norris Webb), and a survey of his color work, The Suffering of Light (2011). Webb has been a full member of Magnum Photos since 1979. His work has been shown widely, and he has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007.

Format: Hardback
Number of pages: 204
Publication date: 2011-05-31
Measurements: 13.2 x 12.2 x 0.9 inches
ISBN: 9781597111737

The images – rich in color and visual rhythm – span 30 years and several continents. Of course, Haiti and the Mexican border are well represented, locales that opened up a new way to see.He has been able to render Haiti – a place often depicted for its chaos – with a precise eye, finding personal moments that are as still as they are complex. He can use shadows as skillfully as a be-bop musician to set the tempo. The people in his frames can look like dwarfs being stomped on by giant, disembodied feet. He can make an American street seem far more foreboding than any Third World slum.–David Gonzalez”The New York Times” (12/18/2011)

Alex Webb was born in San Francisco in 1952. His photographs have been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Life, Stern, and National Geographic and exhibited at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the International Center of Photography and Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. He is a recipient of the Leica Medal of Excellence (2000) and a member of Magnum Photos.
Geoff Dyer is the author of “Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, “among other novels, and several nonfiction books, including “Out of Sheer Rage”. He won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012 for “Otherwise Known as the Human Condition”. He lives in Los Angeles.