This isn't in at number seven because it's my seventh favourite photobook (I know this is post 2...), it's because I want to get it in early. If I could order my choices by favourites it would be much higher up.
As a subject the foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 is far from cheery, and not something anyone from the livestock farming community wants to celebrate. However Dark Days by John Darwell is an unsentimental, hard hitting yet poignant record of the troubled times. maybe with resonance for the current Covid pandemic too.
The format is much in line with how photobooks are formatted these days. Opening text, pictures, closing essay. Without the perspective of the essay and the captions the photographs would not have as much meaning to uninformed viewers.
While presented in the manner of an 'art' photobook it is very much documentary, no frills documentary at that. The pictures are clear to read, many are powerful and moving, and straighforward.
Despite the sadness of the story it's a book I return to often as a reminder of what photography can do, of it's power to show that which most never see and move them while doing it.
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