In a set of forty-three pen & ink line drawings, Charles Woodard levels the history of photography through his own unique brand of stylistic primitivism. Originally produced as pragmatic study aids for a 19th and 20th century history of photography survey course, these comical (and sometimes tragic) ball-pen ink drawings seamlessly bring together photographers as stylistically disparate as Robert Capa and Ed Ruscha. By bringing these crude renderings into the context of the book format, Woodard asks us to consider not only the humorous aspect of these flash cards, but also the reductive nature of image recall and how that relates to our more profound engagement with the world through memory,

Available from A-Jump Books.

Charles Woodard is a senior BFA photography student. During the semester when he took Nick Muellner’s History of Photography course, Charles Woodard got into the habit of creating pen-and-ink drawings on 3×5 flashcards to help prod his memory about the details of various images and artists (you know: What was that photo by Paul Strand in 1916? What did it look like? Where was it produced? That kind of thing…..) Over time, those projects expanded to include projects by other artists — including, as it turns out, Charles Woodard.

A-Jump Books is a small publishing house dedicated to producing photography-based books that challenge convention through understatement and artistic rigour. Using the ‘artists’ book’ concept as a model, we publish books that are conceived of and designed as self-contained works.