In the Still Life
Photographs by Charles Traub
Introduction by Luigi Ballerini
New York: The Quantuck Lane Press, 2004
(distributed by W.W.Norton & Company, Inc.)
From the inside cover:
A photographic narrative on the human condition in the post 20th Century. Pictures taken "on the fly" in the course of twenty years of encounters with the human comedy composes this witty and anecdotal scenario.
Luigi Ballerini in his introduction points out that Traub is always questioning whether God is playing dice with the universe. Things happen, people collide and improbable juxtapositions are snapped at a fraction of a second. Traub is quite sure that his encounters with the absurdities of our everyday lives whether in Tokyo or Rio, New York or Tel Aviv are far more interesting than anything that might be contrived before the camera's lens. Could it all be just chance, a throw of the dice? Or, is the "great power" positioning us like objects in a still life?