Henry Wessel. Incidents.

Nazraeli Press, 2013. 1st edition, cloth, like new.  11.75 x 11.5 inches.  27 previously unpublished photographs.  64 pages. These black-and-white photographs were featured in an exhibit at Pace/McGill Gallery.  Wessel, who was included in the famous New Topographics show and book, stated in an interview: "We can recognize and name what has been described but not what just happened, not what is going on, not what is about to happen. Once you accept the idea that all photographs are fictions, analogies for the things they represent, then you are more receptive to the meaning that is being suggested by that analogy, by that fiction. To be more specific, photographs are about something that would not exist without the photograph." Summary:

Incidents (Steidl, 2013) is a photobook by American photographer Henry Wessel comprising a curated sequence of 27 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs. Considered by Wessel as a "work without words," the publication operates purely through visual sequencing rather than explanatory text.

Key Characteristics & Themes

• The Snapshot Aesthetic: Captured across various American public settings—including parking lots, highways, suburban homes, and beaches—each photograph presents an isolated, commonplace moment rendered with the immediacy of a snapshot.

• Open-Ended Narrative: Rather than telling a closed story, Wessel frames mundane everyday scenes to resemble frozen stills from a larger, mysterious narrative. The sequence invites viewers to project their own implied plotlines onto the uncaptioned "incidents."

• California Light & Space: Characteristic of Wessel’s broader body of work, the images leverage stark, bright sunlight—particularly the harsh lighting of the American West—to stage everyday environments with dramatic contrast and cinematic tension.

• Objective Realism: Influenced by street photographer Garry Winogrand and the New Topographics movement, the book emphasizes factual clarity while leaning into the natural fiction created when a real-world moment is isolated inside a photographic frame.

Significance

Incidents distills Wessel’s signature approach to documentation: elevating banal, fleeting moments of the American social landscape into enigmatic visual puzzles.