The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Copyright the Estate of Larry Sultan 2010 courtesy Steidl This book draws from the major photographic themes that preoccupied Larry Sultan over his life span. By many accounts he was a photographer whose teaching and personal project has directly influenced a generation of photographers. His last project, a fictional narrative about migrant workers in Northern California, is infused with a wonderful mix of an air... Continue Reading →
Copyright Max Pam 2011 courtesy of Editions Bessard This book has all of the appearances of photograph based diary complied by Max Pam during his journeys through the region of Yemen in 1993. Pam’s album is resplendent with a mash-up of photographs, marks, stamps and an interesting hand written travelogue. The square black and white... Continue Reading →
Copyright 2010 the photographers courtesy Pogo Books Sometimes with minimalist photobooks, it may be best that they speak for themselves. Here is a small sampler of photobooks published by Pogo Books (Berlin, Germany) with Jeff Luker, Hasis Park, Ting Cheng and Mark Peckmezian. The books all share a similar diminutive size, stiff covers with saddle stick binding, and minimalistic in... Continue Reading →
Photographs copyright 2012 Roberto Schena courtesy Edizioni Punctum Road Trip is what immediately comes to mind when reading Roberto Schena’s recent photobook SP 67. In the U.S., the words Road Trip creates a vision of traveling on the famous US roadway Route 66 that stretches across the United States, starting in Chicago, Illinois and ending at the... Continue Reading →
Copyright Ron Jude 2008 published by The Ice Plant Ron Jude’s ubiquitous title “Other Nature” for his photobook published by Ice Plant leaves plenty of space to create a wide range of contexts for his photographs. The book’s title and a quote from Frank Kafka’s On Parables provide the only text (and descriptive context), as Jude... Continue Reading →
Copyright Tod Papageorge 2010 courtesy Edizioni Punctum Tod Papageorge received the annual commission from the FotoGrafia Festival Internazionale di Roma in 2010 to interpret the city of Rome. Papageorge is a photographer-flanuer, better known for his early black and white urban photographs and now the director of Yale’s photography program. As in the previous Rome commissions, he explores the city... Continue Reading →
Copyright Mona Kuhn 2011 published by Steidl I think that Mona Kuhn’s new photobook, Bordeaux Series, and her fourth with the publisher Steidl, may be her best to date. Each book has the nude as one as one her principal subjects, but in this book she intertwines the nude portraits of individuals with another theme to raise unanswerable and... Continue Reading →
Copyright James Clancy 2011 Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg Berlin My first impression is that Clancy’s narrative is a darker version of John Gossage’s early photobook The Pond. Similar to Gossage, Clancy is taking us on an imaginary journey, although somewhat grounded in the (non) reality of the photographs, using found landscapes rendered in black and white... Continue Reading →
Copyright Mauro Fiorese & Keith Carter 2008 Edizioni Siz Collaborations are interesting situations that can be a bit unpredictable as to the results, but in this case for this commission by the Palace of Monaco, both Carter and Fiorese were previous collaborators in 2001 for their photobook Two Spirits. With these two creative spirits working... Continue Reading →
Mitch Epstein 2009 copyright courtesy Steidl I think one of the better photographed and designed photobooks to shed light on the complexities and the enormity of the environmental, economic, political and social issues of the production and consumption of energy is Mitch Epstein’s American Power, published in 2009 by Steidl. In reading Edward Burtynsky’s Oil,... Continue Reading →
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