The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Melanie Chapman • For anyone who has ever visited Venice Beach in Southern California, comparisons to New York City’s Coney Island might not seem much of a conceptual stretch. Both are famous urban beachscapes that have been luring tourists from around the world for decades, both are celebrated more for the colorful locals... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Every once in a while we see a photobook that hits all the right spots. In Tundra Kids, Ikuru Kuwajima, a multicultural photographer – born in Japan, studied in the United States, and now lives in Russia – has successfully created a book that shows us a minority at the... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • This retrospective monograph that explores one of John Divola’s urban landscapeprojects created between 1974 and 1975 while finishing his MFA at UCLA (1974). His practice was a form of what today we would call “staged photography”; creating (spray painting) structures and staging events for the single purpose of being photographed,... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • It is a pleasure to start 2019 with the presentation of such an attractive large-format photobook. Louis Jay, who worked as a commercial photographer for many years, has returned to his early love of photographing on the street, without succumbing to the clichés of street photography, but supplying streetscapes that... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Many of us have more than one national and ethnic background, and some of our derivation may be recognizable from our physical appearance, habits, or knowing more than one language, and familiarity with more than one culture. Some of us have a sense of affinity to several different cultural worlds... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Angela Merkel is certainly one of the wonders of the 21st century. As the first female German Chancellor, she wields her power in a rather unassuming and dutiful manner, without much of the pomp and swagger that marks other leaders. Photographs taken of her, for the most part, are marked... Continue Reading →
Magnum China, Edited by Colin Pantall and Zheng Ziyu Published by Thames & Hudson, copyright 2018 Essays; Colin Pantal, Zheng Ziyu, and Jonathan Fenby Text: English Hardcover with dust jacket, 376 pages, 350+ photographs and illustrations, printed and bound by Pacom, South Korea Notes: As a child raised on her American grandmother’s stories of moving... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The southeastern Austrian region known in English as Styria, and in German as Steiermark, is a mostly rural area that has the city of Graz as its center of culture and population density. Little has been known about the area’s mostly rural practice of consuming arsenic, which goes back several... Continue Reading →
As in years past TPBJ has been providing a short list of artistbooks and photobooks we have found to be very Interesting. These are books that we continue to return to in order to enjoy again. Our selection derives from books with intriguing photographic content, brilliant project concepts, excellent book designs that support the artist/photographer’s... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • I asked to review this project because it struck me as a challenging enigma. The photographer, Rose Steinmetz, who originally hails from the country of Georgia and now lives in Brazil, herself has a background that shares several cultural streams and influences. So it only seems fitting that this photographic... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 