Some things in life are definite no-nos: Don’t talk politics at Thanksgiving; don’t park in the handicapped spot. Others are a little more subjective: I, for one, don’t think socks should be worn with sandals, though Kendall Jenner would disagree.
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[Photo: courtesy Aperture]So what happens when you ask hundreds of photographers about their photography no-nos? This is the subject of Photo No-Nos, an alphabetical assortment of more than 1,000 taboo subjects compiled by Jason Fulford, a photographer and publisher who also designed the book. With answers and short essays on topics that range from “abandoned buildings” to “food on my plate,” the book is a curious exploration of the photographer’s mind. More than a simple list of vetoes, it celebrates the value of different perspectives on the same topic, and provides a window into the way creatives see the world in an era when, thanks to smartphone domination, everyone fancies themselves a photographer.
Pages from Photo No-Nos: Meditations on What Not to Photograph (Aperture, 2021) [Photo: courtesy Aperture]“I started thinking about it as a young photographer when we would look at each other’s work and critique each other, and talk about our doubts about certain pictures,” Fulford says. “For this book, I was curious to put that question to a broader group of photographers.”
As for the images themselves, Fulford says he asked the photographers to send in some of their own photos that captured the very things they said were taboo. “So they’re kind of exceptions to the rule,” he says.