{"id":225,"date":"2007-12-19T05:23:05","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T05:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/?p=225"},"modified":"2007-12-19T05:23:05","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T05:23:05","slug":"recreation-american-photographs-1973-1988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.foto8.com\/live\/recreation-american-photographs-1973-1988\/","title":{"rendered":"Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"text\">Mitch Epstein&rsquo;s <\/span><span class=\"italic\"><span class=\"text\">Recreation, American Photographs 1973-1988<\/span><\/span><span class=\"text\"> captures a time when we were more na&iuml;ve if not more innocent. This theme is encapsulated in Plate 41: &ldquo;Miami Beach II&rdquo; in which we see two bikini-clad pubescent girls making a phone call while two adult men leer at their flesh. It&rsquo;s an era when our &ldquo;leisure expectations&rdquo; were not so great and theme parks on the scale of Walt Disney World, for example, were only just being created &ndash; it opened in 1971 &ndash; leaving us largely to make our own entertainment.<\/p>\n<p> Epstein&rsquo;s reflection on the America he photographed is one of loss, a lament for a less cynical epoch than the one in which we live today. He has said of Recreation, &ldquo;To me, the whole project represents the loss of something. It shows a time when we were more optimistic. There was a sense of freedom and the camera was less intrusive.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p> Perforce it was also a time of greater individuality with less ovine tendencies to have and to own the latest gizmo. But for all the individuality captured by Epstein there&rsquo;s a sense of incongruity evident too. For example, Plate 9: &ldquo;Funeral Home Opening&rdquo;. An unattended young girl, approximately five years old, is standing in front of an open &ndash; though empty &ndash; coffin. Is this her parents&rsquo; idea of recreation circa 1974 or is symptomatic of a time when children were less cosseted, treated as adults at a younger age?<\/p>\n<p> Its strangeness aside, the image reveals Epstein&rsquo;s eye for composition and his ability at once both to appreciate and capture the bigger picture. The young girl is wearing pink tights and a dress of the same hue as the satin brocade lining the inside of the open coffin, alluding to life&rsquo;s all too short journey from birth to death. The overall effect renders one not only intrigued and perplexed, but also inspired by Epstein&rsquo;s aptitude and profound insight.<\/p>\n<p> The image&rsquo;s thoughtfulness is one of 66 similarly well-conceived and executed photographs reproduced here, each one a sumptuous tableau measuring 43 x 28cm. Presented as a single image on every right hand page (the left-hand page is blank except for a discreetly placed composition title) the reproduction quality is notable, doing justice to what is a significant body of work that says as much about how we like our leisure time today as it does about how we took our recreation in the &rsquo;70s and &rsquo;80s. In Epstein&rsquo;s own words: &ldquo;It is about the pursuit of pleasure before pleasure was commodified. Now everything is so packaged.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Gordon Miller&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"index.php?option=com_content&amp;task=view&amp;id=183&amp;Itemid=77\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"review_photo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.foto8.com\/reviews\/V4N1\/resources\/Epstein_Recreation_Cover.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988\" title=\"Recreation: American Photographs 1973-1988\" hspace=\"0\" width=\"115\" height=\"81\" align=\"left\" \/><\/a><span class=\"review_author\">Mitch Epstein<\/span><br \/><span class=\"review_additional\">  \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPublished by Steidl<br \/>  \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t&pound;40<br \/> 144pp Hardback<\/span><br \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.5 - 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