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Fashions
exist in art and in ideas quite as much as in women's
clothes and in the world of the mind they are much more
dangerous, for instead of being put forward frankly as
fashions they are presented as the new truth.
How refreshing then, how salutary, how encouraging, to
find a man who is prepared laboriously to think things
out for himself, who will work alone for years to
develop his own vision, his own technique, and who will
not allow himself to be deflected from his chosen path
by so-called experts speaking an esoteric language
directed only at in-groups and which, as Anna Russell
puts it "leave the average person as befogged as
before.''
In photography, as in so many other fields, it is the
loners who break the trail, who make the path that
others can follow. They are few; yet their
originality is seen later to have led them straight into
the mainstream whilst the work of others, sometimes more
immediately successful, is relegated to a mere
expression of the fashion of the times.
John Cohen is very definitely a loner. If he
had not been, he could never have produced the charming,
sentimental, yet so very personal photographs in this
book. For in an age of tension and violence,
when all of us are continually bombarded by images of
horror, to make photographs, solely for pleasure, and
expressing the gentler aspects of life, is to court the
accusation of being escapist, of deliberately ignoring
the allegedly sole business of the photographer, which
is said to be realism and reportage, to be a mirror of
the times.
In all his work John Cohen emphatically refuses to be
tied down by such notions. He insists on being
himself, and in so doing he strikes a blow for the
freedom of the individual, and for the freedom of
photography. With every photograph he says: "there
is more to life than dustbins and death, than weariness
and war; even in an overcrowded world there is room, and
a need, for sweetness and light.''
Light! That narrow band in the energy spectrum, without
which all life on earth would perish!
As Lord
Kenneth Clark reminds us "From Dante to Goethe, all
the greatest exponents of civilisation have been
obsessed with light." This obsession is no
stranger to photographers.
Indeed, since the
photographic image is made by the action of light,
truth to light is truth to the medium of
photography! All John Cohen's photographs are
made, simply and solely, by the use of light.
His magic is the magic of the luminous, his poetry
is that of the chiaroscuro.
The attractions of his work is all the greater for
the purity of the photographic technique, and its
appeal all the more universal for being couched in
an imagery common to all men and intelligible to
all.
From early beginnings in 1963, John
Cohen's work soon attracted attention. An
article in the magazine 'Photography' in 1964,
acceptance in the London Salon of Photography in 1965,
the principal trophy there in 1967: all were encouraging
signs. But it was his one-man show at the 'Wall of
Colour,' Kodak which set the seal of success and of
future development on his work; for this was the first
such exhibition which Kodak had given to an
amateur. It led to exhibitions in the Edinburgh
Festival 1968, in the Coliseum and in Grand Central
Station, New York, in the National Film Theatre, London,
and in many worthwhile venues in the provinces.
But this portfolio is more, much more, than a one-man
show, fascinating though this aspect is in
itself. It is also a 'how-to-do-it'
presentation. And this part is immensely
useful to all who feel inclined to use their camera
imaginatively. For it turns out that far from
needing elaborate and expensive apparatus to produce his
delightful and mysterious results, John Cohen uses only
bits and pieces which can be bought for modest sums
anywhere, or may already be lying about at home.
My goodness, anyone can do it! Well, anyone
that is, who is gifted with imagination, persistence and
patience - for simple though the means may be, it is
clear that the author himself has devoted time and
thought and effort to each of his
pictures. But once again, how good to find
someone willing to reveal a trade secret for the sake of
the spread of the art.
In this article, John Cohen extends the boundaries of
the possible in photography, and shows us all how we can
do so too. What more valuable service could
he render to what Sir John Rotherstein has called "the
dominant and fascinating and only folk art of the
twentieth century?"
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