The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Lee Halvorsen • Lisa McCord’s “Rotan Switch” is a superb synthesis of content, design, and emotion…more than a story, more than photos, more than a book, it’s an experience. The design is unique and subtly compelling. At first look, the white space, the seemingly random text blocks, and the image arrangement didn’t click... Continue Reading →
Review by Debe Arlook • The Meaning of Gravity is the first endeavor by Luhz Press, an independent art book publisher based in Los Angeles. Helmed by Zoe Lemelson, it is also the first monograph of the late Ken Graves’ mixed-media collage. Graves (1942-2016) is a 2000 Guggenheim Fellow well known for his street photography and books from the 1960s -1970s.... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • Two questions come to mind when looking through the 2022 photobook Machine Learning by Phillip Kalantzis-Cope. First, can ”machines” learn a specific task, and second, is this productive learning? The author, Kalantzis-Cope, presents us with ten examples of a specific kind of “machine learning.” In each example, he provides a single titled image (we... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Katherine Longly and Cécile Hupin have created a conceptual photojournalistic project; a series of interviews, quotes, screen grabs and reuse of photographs, repurposed to create a narrative that asks the question: If money cannot buy happiness, what drives people to participate in a lottery? The book is design and sequenced in... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • Before starting a photo book, I usually flip quickly through the pages from back to front to give me a feel for the book. I started to do the same with this small book but surprisingly found myself often pausing to absorb the abstract images more purposefully. The book is an... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Let us all give thanks to Harry Gruyaert for his cones and rods. He shares his sight so that we may see his good works, and thus help us appreciate our planet as a vast and ceaselessly magical place. How fortunate are we as lovers of photographic images that octogenarian Harry... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Whose land is it? This is probably the underlying question for Lana Z Caplan’s photodocumentary project of an expansive region of coastal California, which also represents a broader question for all of North America and the world beyond. Her specific subject is an area generally identified as Oceano, located on the... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale · Everything on our planet to one extent or another depends on water, whether its form is fog, rain, mist, ice, snow, or for many individuals, a much-needed beverage to consume. Otherwise, the Earth would resemble our Moon and the distant planets, devoid of any living things. Clouds essentially provide the environmental... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman · At a certain age in life, admitting what you want to be when you grow up may feel like standing on the shore watching all boats, large and small, setting off to sea. You find yourself waving as the vessels grow more distant on the horizon and ever closer to adventures... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp · Due Occhi, the title of Johannes Groht’s new monograph, can be translated from Italian as “two eyes.” Before considering some of the associations triggered (to use Groht’s term from the artist’s insert included in the review copy), we might first pause to consider the “newness” of the book. Published in 2020, the book (again... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 