Water Over Thunder: Selected Writings, Larry Sultan

Water Over Thunder is the first book devoted to Larry Sultan’s wide-ranging use of writing as a personal, artistic and educational tool. Sultan was one of the outstanding photographers of the twentieth century but commitment to writing and documentation is less examined.

The selected texts in this book – many unpublished until now – come from Sultan’s numerous journals and notebooks, encompassing reflections on his teaching and art practice, drafts for short stories, vivid dream diaries and polished essays. Interspersed throughout are extracts from Sultan’s eloquent public lectures and interviews, illuminating the questions he investigated throughout his life and emphasising the thematic underpinnings of his best known series: Pictures from Home, Evidence (with Mike Mandel) and The Valley. Throughout these various writings, water appears as an important literal and metaphorical force. The book’s title is derived from an early draft of Pictures from Home in which Sultan writes about the process of beginning a new artistic project: ‘Everything is in motion, spinning off of surfaces and slamming against shadowy forms... it seems impossible to find a break in the surface.’  

Water Over Thunder illustrated throughout with previously unseen materials from Sultan’s archive: marked contact sheets, outtakes, scouting shots, selections from his found photo collection, and layout pages from his book maquettes. As a whole, the book illuminates Sultan’s extraordinary way of working and forms an intimate portrait of an artist thinking through his craft and the world around him in real time. 

Mack Books, 320pp, 17cm x 23cm, illustrated hardback (Embossed flexibound), first edition, 2026