Nadav Kander wasn’t my choice for the 2009 Prix Pictet that he won, although I was only judging on the few pictures from his project that were then shown, along with those from the other 11 short listed photographers that were presented on Lens Culture.
But looking at his web site, (it needs Flash – use this link to avoid it messing up your browser by opening a new window – never in my opinion a good thing) where you can see 48 pictures from the winning project, Yangtze, the Long River, it would be hard not be impressed. There is also some fine work in other projects, and I enjoyed reading his biography, which starts with a picture of him wearing a bib in a high chair.
Thanks to the A Photo Student blog, I’ve just spent a very pleasant 10 minutes while drinking my morning coffee watching a video on YouTube listening to Kander talking sensitively about his pictures. Made in collaboration with the Royal College of Art in London, it gives you time to see the pictures and isn’t afraid to put up a black screen when Kander starts talking.
There aren’t any fancy effects to detract from the pictures, and though sometimes the picture fades are little slow for my taste, they go briefly to black between images with none of that annoying overlap that we had to endure in the early years of AV productions and still sometimes see on film (of course one time in a thousand it had some real point – just the other 999 that really turned me off.) It is a video at a pace that allows you to think, made about a series of images that stimulate thought and with some illuminating comments by the photographer.