Dave Heath

Vengeful Sister, 1956 - (c) Dave Heath

Dave Heath

Yesterday Serge Clement kindly gave me the news. Dave has passed away. I am without words, except I know this is one of those defining moments that make your heart skip a beat. 

Thank you Dave. You gave us your dialogue with Solitude.

For many years I have played a silly game with my favorite 3 photo books. They were then and they are now: Masahisa Fukase’s Ravens, Kiyoshi Suzuki’s Mind Games and A Dialogue With Solitude. It is just the order that changes as the years go by.

When we first met in 1999, you signed my copy of A Dialogue With Solitude and I told you about my favorite 3 photo books. You answered: “I am glad someone noticed”.

I was 23 years old when I got A Dialogue With Solitude. It was 1978. Bought it in a small bookstore in Santa Monica, together with Daniel Seymour’s A Loud Song. My reasons for buying these books were woeful: I liked their titles and wanted to have something to look at during the flight to Europe, that same day. A Dialogue With Solitude blew me away. It was like listening to Neil Young’s album Harvest for the first time.

Dave, yes I noticed. You can bring along my belief that by now just about everyone with a heart for photography has noticed. I also think this type of work has no choice but to go slow. Let’s say you turned stones that others simply never touched.

Thank you Dave !

30 June 2016