Your arms are so soft they are like lamb wool

Cloth-bound hardcover, 23.5 x 20.5 cm
Photographs: Orri Jónsson
Text: Robert Adams & Bill Callahan
Publisher: Self-published
Pages: 136
Pictures: 72, tritone & four color process
Year: 2022

Serious long-term photography projects on the subject of family, made by male photographers - fathers - has, for some reason, been somewhat lacking from photobook publications. Orri’s new photobook, Your arms are so soft they are like lamb wool, is a visceral document of family life spanning 33 years, pieced together from visual fragments, mundane moments of living, most of which would be forgotten if not for the photographs. There is some kind of narrative floating around, although elusive, it’s obviously personal but pointing to things bigger than itself. The book includes an afterword by Robert Adams and a text by musician Bill Callahan.

Orri sensed that a conceptual approach to these images would be stifling and contrived, therefore the editing gradually came together through a process that could be described as musical. He did not want an academic, or analytical, text anywhere near this work, a prerequisite that Bill Callahan instinctively understood when contributing his accompanying prose.

Orri uses photography as a learning device, as opposed to an illustrative one, embracing the possibility of the work transcribing meaning beyond his control - hence the afterword by Robert Adams.

Originally slated to be published by Steidl, this book is now being self-published by the artist. Orri’s first book, Interiors, was published by Steidl in 2012.