PBJ Issue Number 38 • With the transition into summer, we are providing some interesting reading opportunities for the poolside or on the beach. We also feature two recent in-person events that were inclusive of books to put on your radar for next year: the CODEX Book fair focused on artists books and the Medium Photo Festival 2022 included... Continue Reading →
Bootsy Holler – Treasures
Review by Douglas Stockdale • While on a holiday it can be entertaining to purchase and send postcards depicting the local points of interest. To jot down a quick personal observation that can help the person receiving it to know a little about your experience. While working in Europe this is a way I tried to... Continue Reading →
Brian Rose – Four Seasons Total Landscaping
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Brian Rose is a commercial architectural photographer who on occasion is intrigued by the self-inflictions that seem to dog an ex-American president. In Rose’s previously monograph, Atlantic City, as Melanie Chapman writes in her book review, Rose documents the ex-president’s bankrupt New Jersey casino as a “failed attempt to dress up a... Continue Reading →
CODEX Book Fair 2022
Overview of Craneway Pavilion interior, photo: @angelbomb by Pamela Landau Connolly • The CODEX VIII International Book Fair is a biennial event organized by the Codex Foundation, whose mission it is to showcase the hand-made art book in all its forms. The fair was originally scheduled for 2021, but like many things, was postponed a year due... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal – Issue #37
Welcome to our 37th Issue • We present another broad selection of book reviews: a couple of titles that we featured during Earth Day week, one photobook about family that is being highlighted in Ann Mitchell's new showcase about Family and a photobook by one of our own contributing editors, Brian O'Neill. With more vaccinations and a slowing of the COVID... Continue Reading →
Laila Nahar – I Have Been Here Before
Review by Douglas Stockdale • As we mature it seems that old family photographs become more bittersweet. Or at least these seem to me. We observe that the many individuals depicted have aged, if not passed, and that our memories of them and related events become more indistinct, as though lost in a midst of time.... Continue Reading →
Alan Gignoux – Mountain Tops to Moonscapes
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Coal mining in American is predominately in a region known as Appalachia, a divisive term applied to parts of Eastern Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia which can extend into parts of Ohio and Georgia. At one time, coal mining required deep tunneling to access the underground deposits, which since the... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal – Issue #36
Welcome to our 36th Issue •This month we offer another broad survey of artist and photographic book reviews that cover a range of issues. We also welcome a new guest reviewer, Brian O'Neill. Please stay healthy and safe.Douglas StockdaleSenior Editor ____ Book reviews featured in March 2022: Toshio Shibata - Boundary Hunt Toshio Shibata likes to blur boundaries. Between... Continue Reading →
Pamela Landau Connolly – Fly in Amber
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Lady Clementina Hawarden (1822 – 1865) was a 19th century British photographer who photographed her adolescent daughters, frequently incorporating the use of mirrors and other reflecting surfaces creating multi-faceted portraits and visual narratives exploring self-reflection and introspection. Interestingly little is known of her life, who remains a mystery and what is suspected... Continue Reading →
R. A. Hansen – dreaming backwards
Review by Douglas Stockdale • R. A. Hansen’s photobook, dreaming backwards, is a nostalgic and poetic retrospective of an early body of work set in the rural landscape of middle America, the grand expanses where he was raised in Iowa. Hansen’s photographs are combined with his poems and personal reflections on these poignant early moments of his... Continue Reading →