Dictionary Thumb Indices

“Early in my career I dedicated a lot of attention to photographing books. They are such curious objects holding at once a Physical volume and weightless information. My pictures of books often deal with my trying to achieve a link between these two poles. I love photographing dictionaries. Larger tomes are so physically imposing, like mountains that suggest a difficult road towards knowledge. I am also drawn to some smaller features in them like the thumb indices provided to help the reader find words.

In this photograph I got as close as possible to fill the view with those helpful indentations which to me sometimes appear like caves, half moons, or just some mysterious gateways into information. I am interested in how the picture borders on total abstraction.”