Title: Art and journalism
Review: Jodi Cobb's "Geisha" is stunning. It is stunning visually, which anyone can see just leafing casually through it. But it is also a stunning journalistic accomplishment. This is not the first time Cobb has gone behind the closed doors of female society. She did a story for National Geographic, where she is a staff photographer, on Arab women. Like the Geisha book, it was an intimate and loving look at the lives of women usually hidden from us behind veils. The Geisha book gives us way more than the superficial beauty shots that usually pass for a look at Geisha life. We see them (quite literally) with their hair down. Which is, after all, what good journalism does. Enjoy the book just for the art if you like. Cobb takes photos with handheld, 35mm cameras using nothing but available light and makes them look like the work of a Flemish master. But also know that you are getting a glimpse of a world few women -- and no men -- can ever know.
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