500 photobook reviews and counting!

Paul Kranzler & Andrew Phelps, The Drake Equation

Late last month when we published our review of Paul Kranzler & Andrew Phelps photobook The Drake Equation, we also officially published our 500th photobook review. Wowzier!!

I had started this book review blog in 2008 and little did I know that it would continue onward for another 10 years and that during this time we would review 500 contemporary photobooks.  And of course we have reviewed two photobook since this milestone, so we are now at 502 photobook reviews.

I am continued to be amazed almost daily by the quality and ingenuity of the photographers, artists, publishers, printers and book designers that continue to create these wonderful book objects.

Since starting this blog I have been joined by Gerhard “Gerry” Clausing for the past two years and shortly we have two more book reviewers joining our team; Melanie Chapman who will be focusing on the photo-documentary and street photography photobooks and Dan Johns whose museum curatorial background will be focusing on the more abstract subject matter. This will allow us to engage with and write about more photobooks as these become available, as the quantity of photobooks being published can be overwhelming. There is nothing worse for me than at the end of the year when I realize that there are still a bunch of titles and a stack of books that I meant to review from the prior two (or three) years.

I must admit that there are the interesting “publishing” stats for this journal that I am proud of; over a million eyeballs and counting, various awards and recognition from our peers, in conjunction with the profound improvement in my writing skills over the years (please, not too many comments to contrary and as this would be a personal concept that I would like to dearly hold on to).

More importantly has been the wonderful discussions and exchanges with extremely creative artist, photographers and designers who in turn have developed some wonderful relations with caring publishers and daring printers who have been willing to take creative chances. Bravo!!

Which in turn all of these beautiful and billiantly designed books are very inspirational in my own artist book practice. Likewise, I hope that you have found our reviews of photobooks and photo-based artist books to be equally inspirational; whether  you are a book collector, bookstore, artist, photographer, designer, publisher or printer.

We are equally indebted to the many photographers and artist in conjunction with their publishers who have provided us with the review copies to work from as holding wonderful these book objects is really a critical part of our review process. So a very big Thank You for your support.

Cheers!!

The PhotoBook Journal team: Doug, Gerry, Melanie and Dan