The opposite of spine

This is a photo by Martina Geccelli, a London-based photographer. She also takes buildings, streets, still lifes of boxes and other everyday objects (there’s a lovely one that includes, as well as a cut lemon and a red pepper, blue and pink plastic bags). No people. But in all her apparently deadpan and static arrangements there’s something happening, between the different elements, across the spaces.

There’s a whole series of books, all with their spines facing away from the camera. The edges that we see are the most open of a book’s six planes, but these are the edges that usually face the wall. They are not designed or made up for public viewing; they are private. A book-lover naturally wants to see the covers, or to open the books further, to read what the words inside them are saying. But really they’re fine as they are: in their restricted range of colours, and the ways the individual books relate to one another, the photographs are like paintings by Morandi; and as with Morandi there’s wit, pathos, dignity, no sentimentality.