Pictures and Their Stories

Synopsis

Ashkan Sahihi's Pictures and Their Stories contains portraits of fifty famous as well as lesser known personages in our cultural life - artists, composers, filmmakers, musicians and writers, but also figures that play an influential role in the business and political side of culture. It is the unique character of this book that all portraits are accompanied by sometimes startlingly revealing narrations about the photographer's encounters with his subjects, and that they are supplemented by additional photographs from the shooting sessions, as well as short biographies. Photography books traditionally only present to us the results of what went on before and during shooting sessions. Yet Pictures and Their Stories also gives us a look behind the scenes. The stories tell us how this photographer experienced his subjects and the situation in which they were together. They give us accounts of personal encounters and the photographic images into which they were transformed. Sahihi's portraits are of classic simplicity and directness. He does not crop his portraits but only uses full frames, and he does not manipulate the photographs during printing. In themselves, they achieve a complexity which contains truths that go far beyond the fleeting moment, for the work already contains the stories which Sahihi tells in this book.