The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Regina Anzenberger’s Roots & Bonds is a self-published book that appears to be a mash-up of Paul Caponigro photographs and Abstract Expressionism artwork while reading like we are peeking into an artist’s private sketch book. Even more so when we find images with her hand-written notes in the margins of the... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Have you ever enjoyed a novel, or fallen in love with a painting or film, only to later learn something uncomfortable about the creator or the situation in which the work was produced? Did you find yourself rethinking your reaction based on that new information, or were you able to... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • “Where are we going?” “I wanted to show you nothing.” Coming from most people, that explanation would hardly seem appealing. But William Eggleston is not most people. “Nothing” has earned him his place as a seminal figure in modern fine art photography. When he told Harmony Korine and Juergen Teller... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • This book is about an enduring love story between two individuals, Blieke and Nicole, with a few twists. As they tell it, they met at a mental institution, as we later learn, Nicole has severe anxiety attacks, while we surmise that Blieke met Nicole while he was visiting his lover... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Alice Jankovic has created an introspective and poetic artist book inspired by a recently found family archive that includes a worn copy of Thoreau’s Walden. It may have been Thoreau’s book that was the inspiration for one of her early family members to make a pivotal decision to live in the... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • It’s just a room, and a very small one at that, but there aren’t many spaces with a presence as large as the Roman Catholic confessional. S. Billie Mandle captures its seen and unseen power in Reconciliation. Mandle, a photographer based in Los Angeles and Western Massachusetts, spent ten years photographing... Continue Reading →
Welcome to our 21st Issue & the end of 2020 •Whew! We are now preparing for the Spring 2021 books and publications, which no doubt have been in the works for awhile. Always exciting to see what creative new endeavors will emerge. 2020 has been a traumatic year, not only in the U.S. but globally. It is very nice... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • After moving to Southern California and adapting to the zone system for my natural black and white landscape photography, Imogen Cunningham as a result of her affiliation with the West Coast Group f/64 was already legendary. She was well known for her botanicals, nudes, and portraits, as well as a... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • The deprivation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic knows no bounds. Consider the plight of the Los Angeles jet set. Boutiques on Rodeo Drive shuttered. Beverly Hills Hotel and Chateau Marmont deserted. Even their jets at LAX grounded and shrink-wrapped for freshness until the crisis is over. Those are the scenes... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • The cover photograph of a book can provide a visual hint of what is yet to come. A vexing book title can add mystery and intrigue. What appears to be an 1800s wet-plate collodion photograph of a woman holding a banner in front of a painted tableaux seems to falter... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 