Gary Briechle – the celebrated American photographer known partly for becoming a Guggenheim Fellow in 2015, but mostly for his decades-long photography obsession with Maine – is set to continue his love affair with the 23rd state in a forthcoming monograph.
I Want To See A Lighthouse is the latest culmination in what Briechle has described as three decades “roving around midcoast Maine in an SUV loaded with glass plates, chemicals, old view cameras”. The book neatly picks up where Maine, his second monograph on the state, left off.
Unlike Maine, which featured highly saturated and color-rich photographs, I Want To See A Lighthouse returns to the eerie black-and-white collodion photographic process with which the artist made a name for himself in the eponymous monograph, Gary Briechle.
However, in the same vein as Gary Briechle and Maine, the latest monograph hones in on what could be seen as the dark underbelly of the US state hiding in the familiar and everyday, despite its picturesque coastlines and rugged wilderness.
With images predominantly taken in and around the city of Rockland, where Briechle calls home, the latest monograph is a more intimate, albeit still horror-show-esque exploration.
Focusing on the unnerving, frame after frame Briechle depicts ghostly subjects that are neither “present nor absent”, with the paranormal aesthetic exacerbated by the collodion chemical process.
I Want To See A Lighthouse is set for publication in September by Charcoal Press, with the 224-page monograph being priced at $85 / £65 (Australian pricing to be confirmed). Visit Charcoal Press Book Club for more information, where you can also purchase copies of Briechle’s previous books.
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