Sturges’ work has always been about the passage of time - moments captured from the lives of key collaborators as they age and evolve, beginning as blank slates and gradually, slowly, book after book, making their inexorable way towards adulthood. There is real pathos in this, and this is the ultimate value that I draw from Sturges’ work. Working in close year after year, decade after decade, his captured images are like brushstrokes in much larger works than can only now be fully appreciated. The fragmented nature of his previous publications - a few new pictures of this or that person, then jump ahead a few years to the next book and do it again - were interesting, and the stunning technical specs of his large-format portraits never less than beautiful (although my opinion is that the shots themselves sometimes bordered on the pedestrian), but they always seemed somehow too diffuse, too abrupt. A person picking up one of his books without the context of the others would likely see random nude photos of random nude people, a shallow representation of what Sturges work is about (but what attracts the most notoriety).
That all ended with "Misty Dawn: Portrait of a Muse," his first work devoted to just one subject. Finally, a lifetime of collaboration could be appreciated for what it was - a record of moments pulling ever forward. The trend continues with "Fanny," another publication dedicated to moments captured over 22 years in the life of one subject. Fanny has graced the cover of a previous Sturges overview, and has appeared in book after book, always recognizable, somehow universal, but also removed, protected from the outside world by the insular naturist community in France in which Sturges does a large amount of his work. I was delighted, then, to read Sturges' prelude to "Fanny," which lays out in very immediate terms a biographical sketch of the girl (now woman). There are revelations that suddenly lend every image in this book - and all previous images of Fanny - real gravity. Here, Sturges displays more than bodies - he shows a glimpse of heart and mind, as well, and the impact is incredibly powerful.
I think Sturges power as a photographer lies in his ability to put his subjects so at ease that they cease to be anything contrived in front of the camera, and simply become themselves. For most of his models, he is like family, and that comfort comes through clearly in the body of work he continues to add to summer after summer. The power in the images lies with the models, not really with the photographer (a sentiment I think Sturges would agree with), as Sturges images have rarely been overly fussy or composed - just moments he happened to be privy to, and have the good fortune to capture with his camera. He is able to make us see his models as he sees them, as regular, beautiful people. Beautiful because they are regular, and because they are alive.
Sturges seems to have entered a "golden age" in his career, where the work he has been creating for decades can now finally be seen as the immersive documents they really are, as opposed to mere snippets. I hope for many more of these single-subject overviews in the years to come. That is what Sturges' work is all about, and that is where it shines. Sturges explains a bit of his methods of working with Fanny in his introduction, and he explains that, although the work was created over a span of 22 years, Fanny didn't pose for him as often as you would think, and this volume represents almost everything they created together. That it is not a cherry-picked "best of" actually works in the book's favor, as many of the shots come across as more casual than what you would expect from a Sturges book. I think this works in the book's favor, as it even further underscores the nature of the collaboration, the reality of a friendship between two people, and gives a more natural overview of maturation and the passage of time.
By far the deepest, most personal, and most affecting of Sturges' books, "Fanny" is an easy recommendation for anyone curious about Sturges or his work. Literally a lifetime in the making, it is human existence on a personal, yet somehow universal scale.
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