This book contains more than 400 pictures of Swedish photographer Gunnar Smoliansky's (born 1933) hands--each a spontaneous composition crafted by the photographer in his traditional darkroom. Some pictures are deceptively simple, hardly recognizable abstractions; others are realistic, revealing even the texture of Smoliansky's palm; while others still are almost violent inky overlappings. By bypassing the tool of the camera and reinterpreting the photogram, Smoliansky revisits one of the earliest means of photographic picture-making and creates a gestural space between photography and drawing. I don't know what it was that made me start on these pictures, he ponders. Always after the end of the working day ... What I did was to open a box in darkroom lighting and take out some papers between my thumb and my index finger. Then the work continued in ordinary room lighting. I numbered the papers, all of which are presented here in the book.
