Desert Island Photo Books - 5

Ken Grant is usually associated with square format black and white photographs of Merseysiders, but Flock is a colour work recording the last days of Hereford's auction mart, the place, the auctions and the people, plus a little documentation of the new build, out of town, mart.

 

 

I first came across this work on Grant's website where it was under the heading 'The Bird House' when I was embarking on my poultry photography. It was a bit of a downer to find someone else had photographed poultry auctions, but I soon accepted that as inevitable and that I was photographing a different mart in a different way.

 

The book expands on the poultry auctions and shows the range of other sales which took place. Having expanded into photographing sheep sales myself I now wish there were more sheep pictures in the book!

 

 

From a point of view of this book as an object it strikes the right balance for me in terms of size at rough;y A4. Not too big to make holding it a pain in the arse, but not so small that detailed photographs don't reveal all.

A book of straightforward pictures recording something the recent end of a long era. Pictures which stand revisiting to see little things missed in previous perusals. And it fits in my theme for these desert island books, and my photobook collection in general.

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