Peter Black
All images copyright Peter Black
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Other Books

the grass is awfully green

The grass is awfully green is part of Peter Black’s on-going series of photographs examining the social landscape of New Zealand. With his penetrating and wry vision Black looks at a nation trying to balance between its past and the ideal of a 100% Pure New Zealand. The work covers images made between 2008 and 2012 throughout New Zealand.

1. the grass is awfully green is available as an open edition hardback book. The hardback book contains 81 full colour images, across 103 pages, printed on Mohawk Proline Pearl 190gsm paper, with a dust jacket and linen cover. Size: 33 x 28cm (13 x 11inches) $NZ250.

(Includes delivery in New Zealand. For a tracked and signed courier to Australia please add $NZ33, or $NZ68 to other destinations).
 
2. the grass is awfully green is also available as a soft cover catalogue with 22 images, printed on Premium Lustre     148gsm paper. Size: 20 x 25 cm ( 10 x 8 inches) Cost: $NZ100 (includes delivery within New Zealand. For a tracked and signed courier to Australia please add $NZ33, or $NZ68 to other destinations ).

Orders

To order a book please email Peter at blackbookscontact@gmail.com

Please specify which version of the book (limited or open) or catalogue you are ordering and provide your street address for delivery.


Either Peter or James will email you with payment details when your order is received. (PayPal available).

To see an excerpt from the work visit Projects.

Reviews

Wellington photographer and reviewer Andy Palmer writing in Lumiere Reader:

" At first glance it [the grass is awfully green] appears to be a collection of more-or-less random images, a mix of landscapes, street photography, close ups and even nature photography. Individual photos could be read as commenting on the likes of the tourist industry, urban development, capitalism, the income gap, the rural environment, but like much of Black’s work it can be read collectively as a ‘state of the nation’."
Read more

 

Book tease


i loved you the moment i saw you

Limited copies available

Introduction (abridged) by Ian Wedde
Published by Victoria University Press 2011

Limited copies available - $60 plus $10 tracked postage within NZ. (Please inquire for overseas shipping)

Orders to: peterblack386@gmail.com

See images from 'i loved you the moment i saw you'

Frozen

The images of Frozen deal with idea of damage in New Zealand's social fabric, be it physical, psychological or economic. Using street scenes, signage and piercing details, Peter Black builds an image sequence with underlying coherence and moments that catch at the mind and heart. 

The book also features an essay by New Zealand poet, photo book collector and reviewer, Andrew Johnston. Johnston writes: "Black's eye is unflinching, but there's nothing cruel or contemptuous in his gaze; his frankness is a non-judgmental act of acknowledgement, or recognition. The solitary, sad-faced diners in brashly lit food bars; the perplexed, lost-looking pedestrians; the ignored elderly busker: Black's curiosity is soaked in care, in compassion. You may be damaged, his photos seem to say to their subjects, but I've noticed, and I'm suffering with you."

and " These stories are embedded in recent history: Black's photographs show that he is acutely aware of the tears and stresses that the social and physical fabric of New Zealand life has endured over the past 30 years."

David Eggleton, reviewing in Landfall Online said: "
In Peter Black’s photo-book Frozen, there’s something voodoo-like or juju-like about its colour photographs taken on the fly, as if Black is a witchdoctor with a camera, engaged in psychic healing, or at least psychic assessment. Henri Cartier-Bresson spoke of the need for a documentary photographer in pursuit of a clinching image to have ‘a velvet hand and a hawk’s eye’. Black is one of the gifted few who have both attributes: he knows how to obtain the maximum effect with artistic finesse. He knows how to render the soul of an image." More


Real Fiction
Introduction by Gregory O"Brien from survey show at City Gallery, Wellington, 2003
Real Fiction  (Sport 30, pub Fergus Barrowman), edited by Gregory O'Brien and Lara Strongman, was published to coincide with the opening of Peter Black Real Fiction, curated by Gregory O'Brien at City Gallery, Wellington, 2003.




White horse black dog Sport 15. Published by Fergus Barrowman 1995

Fifty photographs. Published by The National Art Gallery and PhotoForum 1982
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