THE author, or compiler, of this collection, William A. Ewing, openshis introduction with what at first sight appears a highly contentious claim: "All photographs are, at some level, about love, and all photographs are triggered, to varying degrees, by desire". A moment's reflection, however, will reveal that he is right, depending, of course, on how the terms love and desire are to be defined. Even the tourist going down to the chemist's shop to collect the holiday snaps will experience a frisson of mingled excitement and trepidation very like that which makes the palms sweat on a first date.
The photograph, no matter how innocent the subject, has something of the indecent about it, from the most amateurish effort up to the swish and sheen of a high-resolution fashion shot; these flashes of time were not meant to be preserved like this, cut off from context, freely afloat in a surreal realm where everything is impenetrably enigmatic and yet fraught with significance. It is the intimate remoteness of photographs that slightly unnerves the viewer. This sensation of being at once excluded and seduced is particularly strong inthe case of erotic photographs. There are not as many such in this collection as the title might lead us to expect - anyone looking for titillation will be disappointed. Yet it is a wonderful selection: the images are by turns ravishing, mysterious, seductive and witty, Ewing's text is as provocative as the pictures, and the price is remarkable.
ò John Banville is a novelist and Chief Literary Critic and Associate Literary Editor of The Irish Times