Copyright Hisashi Shimizu 2009, courtesy photo-eye & Kodansha On the surface, the subjects of Hisashi Shimizu’s book Portraits of Silence are soldiers who perished during the Iraq conflict, indirect portraits developed from the perspective of the soldier’s parents. But Portraits of Silence is also about the desire to maintain the memory of a beloved, and... Continue Reading →
Christopher Thomas – New York Sleeps
Copyright Christopher Thomas 2009, courtesy of Prestel Verlag When I recently shared my thoughts about the future of photobooks when looking out another 10 years, I can not imagine at the moment an electronic version that would be capable of simulating the feel of a wonderful photobook lying in my hands. Christopher Thomas’s recent book... Continue Reading →
Future of Photobooks?
Andy Adams of Flak Photo contacted me a couple of days ago to participate in a discussion about the future of photobooks. Seems that this discussion is a spin off of a brief article posted by Joerg Colberg on Conscientious regarding his thoughts on cutting-edge photobooks, found here and potentially summed up by "I have been noticing that there isn't much of a... Continue Reading →
Nan Goldin – Variety
Photographs copyright Nan Goldin 2009 Courtesy Skira Rizzoli New York and photo-eye Bette Gordon’s famous, perhaps infamous, 1983 independent film Variety evolved from an earlier series of cinematic narrative photographs created by Nan Goldin. A few of the photographs from Goldin’s Variety were incorporated in her earlier opus, The Ballard of Sexual Dependency. This photobook is the... Continue Reading →
Chris McCaw – Sunburn
Copyright Chris McCaw 2009 courtesy Cavallo Point Resort I enjoy McCaw’s frankness in how his project Sunburn came about, the effects of “whisky” and not being conscious to close the shutter of his camera after a night long exposure. Rather than trash the results of the night, he decided to follow serendipity and chance to... Continue Reading →
Holiday photo-book sales – more opportunities
Just a note that I continue to add more Holdiay photo-book deals and links on the 2009 Holiday Photo-book page, here. Sales and discount opportunities are still available at Aperture, photo-eye, Radius Books, AbeBooks, Fotovision and U. of Chicago Press. Best regards, Douglas Update: Just added powerHouse and Pond Press sales to the list.
Arnoud Bakker – Atropa bella donna
Copyright Arnoud Bakker, 2009, courtesy Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht To be in love, or perhaps in lust, is to experience a kind of narcosis and paralysis, with an inability to focus, while the heart rate becomes erratic. There are other symptoms of which there may be a lack of awareness in the moment; dilated pupils, blurred... Continue Reading →
Lukas Felzmann – Waters in Between
Copyright Lukas Felzmann 2009 Courtsey Lars Muller Publishers Water is an elusive essential to both man-kind and nature, without it you will certainly wither away and perish, and if by chance there is too much, you may drown. People have tried to control, manage and harness water, to force it to do what they feel... Continue Reading →
Duane Michals – 50
Copyright Duane Michals 2009, courtesy Edizioni Siz and photo-eye Spending time with the recent Duane Michals book, 50, a fifty year retrospective by the Italian publisher Siz, was essentially re-experiencing much of my own photographic life, having come of photographic age with his somnambulist period. His fascination with dreams, dreamlike states and dream-walking precedes our current interest with making connections to memories. Michals is... Continue Reading →
2009 Holiday Photo-Book sales
One nice thing about the Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years Holidays here in the US are the various photobook sales & discounts that become available. So follow the links to some great deals. Rather than a series of postings each time I become aware of a Holiday photobook sale, I am going to just keep... Continue Reading →