Angkor

This palm-sized point-of-purchase book, featuring an assortment of color and black-and-white photographs of the ruins of the ancient city of Angkor and Angkor Wat, its stunning temple, feels something like a handheld tourist slideshow, courtesy of a slightly better picture-taker than most. Lacking a real narrative thread (the only text is in the brief introduction) or a particular photographic sensibility, the pictures-closeups of bas relief figures, portraits of natives, panoramic shots of temple and sky-express a genuine but rather vague romance for the ruins of far away places. Grandjean seems to love the details and shapes of Angkor Wat, the twisting trees and crumbling, intricate stonework, but he fails to find much that is undocumented there, and thus falls back on a generic soft focus sensibility (literal focus is clear and sharp) to capture it. The final product is polished and concise, but ultimately fits snugly into what feels like a larger New Age tourist economy.