Valéry Lorenzo has created a posting on Josef Sudek

In the United States, as he may not know, we have a saying, "Lowells speak only to Cabots, and Cabots speak only to ...". It's a hideous enough reflection on our inexpressibly empty 'social mobility,' to lay its cap of blasphemy aside. Although hierarchy is diametrically not in the nature of the humane art of photography, the saying runs through one's mind, on seeing the learnèd and candid posting Valéry Lorenzo has published today at his blog, on the illuminating Josef Sudek.

One values one's betters by their candour as much as by their work. M Lorenzo has designated Sudek as his favourite photographer, and has confessed to harbouring not the least interest in imitating him. But he'd be a grateful splashblock, he implies. And who knows how impermeable any of us is, to what we respect? I, ever querulous in photography, feel a happy enough debt to a Valéry Lorenzo to welcome it, as he would say, to my dreams.

An egg and a crust of bread from Josef Sudek (subtitled, "Poet of Prague" in my lone volume of his works). I had him in mind, with Paul Strand, when I spent a day recalled in "American veteran." I second this happy posting, and thank M Lorenzo for joining followers here - which term is surely backwards, for all one's readers.


We are a city of coffee, comprising wafts of crema in our whirl.