By Suzanne Révy
Life is ephemeral. Photography cannot stave off the tragedy of death, but it might extend or expand life through faint traces of light and shadow. Discoveries found in pictures can bring long forgotten memories to the surface and open possibilities to learn more about past lives. Four recently published books address death, memory and the fleeting sense of time through evocative black and white or monochrome pictures that broaden an understanding of past and present. They are Craig Easton’s An Extremely Un-get-atable Place, Vaune Trachtman’s Now is Always, Amy Friend’s Firelight and Cheryle St Onge’s Calling the Birds Home.

An Extremely Un-get-atable Place by Craig Easton (Gost Books, London)

An Extremely Un-get-atable Place by Craig Easton, published by Gost Books. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

An Extremely Un-get-atable Place by Craig Easton, published by Gost Books. (Book photographed by Suzanne Révy)
Photography and writing are often solitary pursuits. Craig Easton’s palpable meditation on George Orwell in An Extremely Un-get-atable Place emphasizes the spare rigor of crafting a novel through the desolate landscape on the Scottish island of Jura. Orwell lived there in the latter part of the 1940’s and finished his masterpiece 1984 there through illness. He suffered with tuberculosis, and we learn through several excerpts from letters and diaries that he was to some degree, dissatisfied with his novel. Printed on a lighter stock of paper, Orwell’s typewritten notes add context to Easton’s book without disrupting its visual and emotional ethos.

An Extremely Un-get-atable Place by Craig Easton, published by Gost Books. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

An Extremely Un-get-atable Place by Craig Easton, published by Gost Books. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Easton’s warm-toned black and white photographs are moody and resonate with memory. Two gatefolds reveal expansive triptychs that are atmospheric and dreamlike, while single images of trees or lanes undulating through the rolling landscape offer a psychological gateway for the reader to enter Orwell’s mind. In several pictures, a simple white farmhouse appears in the distance, and near the end of the book we see it with a single light ablaze in a window. Is Orwell still there? Toiling away on his typewriter? Orwell’s depth as a writer is in stark contrast to the desolate landscape and the spare details of the domestic interiors Easton photographed. Perhaps the complexity of his ideas flourished because he maintained simple and solitary surroundings, and yet, I can hear the wind howling over the meadows. Easton’s book is an eye-opening peak inside the creative life of one of the 20th century’s great writers.

Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman with a forward by Major Jackson, published by Tusen Takk Press.

Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman with a forward by Major Jackson, published by Tusen Takk Press.

Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman with a forward by Major Jackson, published by Tusen Takk Press.
Vaune Trachtman takes us on a journey to discover someone who has passed on in Now is Always. Her father died when she was a small child. She found and employed the photographs he made of his Philadelphia neighborhood between the two World Wars and discovered something of the man she never really knew. Collaging his pictures of the faces of anonymous neighbors with her contemporary work brings the past into the present. Her use of a slow shutter imbues the images with mist and luminosity while the unknowable faces haunt the work with poignancy. As a reader, my curiosity is piqued: when or how did these people live or die? And how do they haunt our lives today?

Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman with a forward by Major Jackson, published by Tusen Takk Press.

Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman with a forward by Major Jackson, published by Tusen TakkPress.
Trachtman’s book is an extraordinary object with an introductory booklet tipped into the inside of the front cover and a lay-flat binding for the pictures. The book’s intimate size is comforting, and the sequence of her sepia-toned images is fluid and harmonious. Her pictures imaginatively revel in the idea of memory. The final chapter, “All That Is” showcases a series where she incorporated condolence letters her mother received after her father’s death, love letters between them, and the notebooks her investigative journalist father left behind. The handwriting was often difficult to read, but Trachtman found his demeanor and personality in those quickly drawn letters and marks. The “collaboration” became a collegial effort between a daughter and her long-lost father. As a reader, I can sense a closeness between them.

Firelight by Amy Friend published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Firelight by Amy Friend published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Firelight by Amy Friend published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Amy Friend appropriates found images in her book Firelight. Unlike Trachtman, most of these pictures were found at flea markets, but a few languished in the bottom of desk drawers. She may or may not have a personal connection to the subjects or the photographers, but she guides us on a journey across the ocean to exotic lands and the possibilities of peaceful existence that might occur between or after a war. Many of the pictures feature people on vacation or relaxing.

Firelight by Amy Friend published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Firelight by Amy Friend published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Friend carefully pierces tiny holes into each image, creating effusive constellations with an implied blessing. The paperback book with a French binding is encased in a simple blue cloth-bound box, and each laser cut page is folded. The effect is an ever-changing direction of light and texture as the reader turns or manipulates the pages. Her sequence of images moves through a muted prism from a cool to a warm monochrome palette, punctuated occasionally by nostalgic color pictures. The languid rhythm and tactility of the paper invites quiet revery. Many of the people in the pictures are probably no longer living, and I can’t help but feel that they may be spending the afterlife in a sailboat somewhere on the sea— like a communal and eternal memory.

Calling the Birds Home by Cheryle St. Onge, published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Calling the Birds Home by Cheryle St. Onge, published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Calling the Birds Home by Cheryle St. Onge, published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Longing and remembering are profoundly present in the work of Cheryle St. Onge. Her book, Calling the Birds Home, is an ode to the love between a daughter and an aging parent who is infirm and suffering from dementia. St. Onge’s mother had been an artist who made drawings and sculptures of birds. The trifold front cover includes one of her bird sketches and there are a series of smaller pages with still-life compositions that meditate on her mother’s art making. As her mother aged and was less able to make art, but she retained a guileless curiosity that facilitated an intimate collaboration between the two of them.

Calling the Birds Home by Cheryle St. Onge, published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)

Calling the Birds Home by Cheryle St. Onge, published by L’Artiere. (Book photograph by Suzanne Révy)
Employing a variety of tools, including an 8”x10” view camera, St. Onge photographed her mother surrounded by flora and fauna or within the quiet spaces of their home. In some pictures, her mother frolics before the camera, in others, she is pensive. Sprinkled into the sequence are still-lifes and landscapes that seem to anticipate her absence. This book is by turns humorous and sad. One particularly poignant pairing features a meadow of delicate Queen Anne’s Lace opposite a portrait of her mother hiding her face with her arm, revealing nettles stuck to her coat. The book ends with a self-portrait that hints toward a future without her mother. Despite the loss, St. Onge generously shares heartrending evidence of the memories they made together that affirms the ephemeral nature of life. How fortunate to have spent such precious time together.
An Extremely Un-get-atable Place
By Craig Easton
Afterword by Richard Blair with written excerpts by George Orwell
Gost Books, 2025
https://gostbooks.com/en-us/products/an-extremely-un-get-atable-place-craig-easton
Now is Always
By Vaune Trachtman
Forward by Major Jackson
Tusen Takk Press, 2025
https://thestorymatic.com/products/now-is-always-by-vaune-trachtman
Firelight
By Amy Friend
Curated by Laura Serani
L’Artiere, 2025
https://www.lartiere.com/en/prodotto/preorder-firelight-amy-friend/
Calling the Birds Home
By Cheryle St. Onge
Sketches by Carol St. Onge
L’Artiere, 2025
https://www.lartiere.com/en/prodotto/calling-the-birds-home-cheryle-st-onge/

Featured Books (l-r): Calling the Birds Home by Cheryle St. Onge (L’Artiere), An Un Extremely Un-get-atable Place by Craig Easton (Gost Books), Now is Always by Vaune Trachtman (Tusan Tukk), and Firelight by Amy Friend (L’Artiere). Photograph by Suzanne Révy.
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