Zoe Crosher's Out the Window is a lovely little book of snapshots that each feature a commercial airliner in some small corner of the view from the window of hotel rooms neighboring LAX. I'm tempted to leave it at that, since that alone suffices as an "accurate review." But this little series really sucks you in with its playful, yet intriguing compositions, colors and abstract forms.
This book aptly demonstrates how square format frees up the space within a frame into a more democratic form that allows one to pay equal attention, at once and in equal measure, to all the compositional elements, instead of focusing on certain elements based on how much space they're allotted within an elongated frame, or how that space is used to accentuate or isolate. Everything kind of happily floats around in a squared circle- it's either in the middle, or not. That's not to say that square format necessarily makes composition easier, it just offers up a different visual language with different contexts and nuances. Abstract shapes and colors are free to take on a life of their own.
The book is not all playful form and style however, it's a contemplative reminder of all the passing, fleeting moments spent furtively peering out onto foreign locales, wondering aloud in those transitory moments of our lives.
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