The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Photographs copyright 2012 Brian Finke published by Decode Books While curating my photobook exhibition for Fotografia di Roma last Fall, while exploring the theme of Work, one of my disappointments was the late arrival (at least too late for me to include in the exhibition) of Brian Finke’s photobook Construction. Finke explores, as he has... Continue Reading →
Photographs copyright 2012 David Schulz published by the Book Bakery (Publication Studio, Toronto) Lone Wolf is one in a series of photo-bookworks developed by David Schulz. He investigates various “motifs (which) act as gears that engage the photographs and provide opportunities for (mis) aligning the visual content through the graphic structure of a bookwork. As... Continue Reading →
Copyright 2012 Cristina de Middel (Puch), self-published Christina de Middel created a historical novella with her artists book The Afronauts about what might could have been. In 1964 Edward Makuka Nkoloso created the Zambian Space Program with the goal to fly twelve astronauts, including one girl, and ten cats to Mars. He was convinced that... Continue Reading →
Photographs copyright Florian Van Roekel self-published, first edition 2010, second edition 2012 Of the photobooks I selected for the theme of “Work” for 2012 Fotografia di Roma’s photobook exhibition, “How Terry Likes his Coffee; A Photo Odyssey into Office Life” by Florian van Roekel resonates the strongest with me as it relates to my day... Continue Reading →
Copyright Chris Coekin 2011 published by Walkout Books The background story on the industrial setting for Chris Coekin’s The Altogeher is a UK factory that began manufacturing copper wire over one hundred and fifty years ago in 1834. Recently the factory was shut down in conjunction with the laying-off of all the employees. Coekin has... Continue Reading →
photographs copyright 2012 Ron Jude, published by MACK On the surface, this photobook is Ron Jude’s narrative about the work and identity of an animal trapper near Lick Creek, Somewhere in the Western United States. The story that slowly emerges is an investigation into cultural and environmental change and the resulting conflict between old traditions... Continue Reading →
Copyright Charlotte Dumas 2011 published by FantomBooks The animal portrait photographs by Charlotte Dumas for her photobook Al Lavoro! (At Work!) are of dogs at their places of “work." The book investigates how might “work” be defined for an animal, as surely we can speculate that these dogs might not define this “work” in the... Continue Reading →
Copyright Christian Patterson 2011 published by MACK This photobook is Christian Patterson’s retelling of the murder spree of a psychopath, Charles Starkweather, and his young girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, that occurred in late 1958 and early 1959. As elegantly described by Luc Sante “(Patterson) followed Starkweather and Fugate’s trail, visiting all the places where they... Continue Reading →
Copyright Michal Chelbin 2010 published by Twin Palms Publishers Wrestling is a sport requiring intense exertion with direct and intimate contact between two opponents. This is not the wrestling entertainment common to late night television, but an athletic sport that harkens back to the first Olympic Games conducted in Greece. Two individuals grapple together, each... Continue Reading →
Copyright Pieter Hugo 2011 published by Prestel Verlag Pieter Hugo observes and photographs workers toiling in debris fields for the recycling of technology trash. I read this as an elegant ecological criticism of the one of many underlying issues that surrounds technology; the dizzying pace of obsolensces. The toxic nature of the technology discards has... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 