Transitions and Exits
Ari
Marcopoulos
Powerhouse Books
You’re milling around a bookstore, waiting for one of
your beatnik friends to tire of reading poetry and looking at pictures of
ancient art. You attempt to entertain yourself with books about nomadic
tribes that don’t wear clothes. You flip through several editions
published by National Geographic, but the drooping, weathered breasts
you’re seeing just aren’t doing it for you. You walk around to the other
side of the shelf, when you see it: a book about a tribe of people who
travel the globe in search of powder turns and bluebird days. Along the way,
there just happens to be a few porno magazines, video games and implements
of creative drug use. Your search is over, and you are entertained, at least
until its time to leave the store.
The book you’re reading is called Transitions and Exits, and the tribe it speaks of is none other than snowboarders. It is a photo essay on the lives of snowboarders from around the globe done by Ari Marcopoulos.
Before you get too excited about a book that involves almost no reading, not even photo captions, and features nothing but snowboard culture on every page, a word of warning: The book is not a hardcover snowboard magazine. Action shots are few and far between. As Marcopoulos explains in the interview, “so many of those pictures are made and published because the industry itself thrives on photography and film.” Instead, the majority of the content is taken from the down time: sitting in a hotel room, waiting out an injury or talking on the phone in a towel.
Transitions and Exits seems as though it was made for an anthropologist alive 100 years from now, trying to understand the customs of the people included. Even the interview, done by Louise Neri, serves more as an explanation of the culture than a commentary about it, as seems to be the norm in snowboard media.
Marcopoulos shows, through his photographs, what is everyday for the people involved. Reading this book is like flipping through the photo album of someone with only famous friends. You feel like you know everyone, but looking at the photos you soon forget the personalities you associate with the people from their public personas. Instead you begin to feel involved in their lives, after all, when you’ve turned the last page, you’ll have seen them through their highs and lows. The message plastered throughout the book is that what’s included is real, and it indeed resonates true.
-Brooke Geery
To purchase a copy of Transitions and Exits visit www.powerHouseBooks.com or call 1-877-pH-Rocks
Yo Beat Picture Book Club: We review Transitions and Exits. It's okay to read cause it's all pictures.
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