The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Front Cover, Blue Bar Rear cover, Blue Bar Review by Douglas Stockdale • The humidity and occasional fog derived by the proximity of a river can create beautifully dreamlike conditions or provide a mysterious backdrop for a creepy event. Between these these two polar opposites is a low-contrast environment that elicits a kind of gloominess,... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • With its familiar yellow-and-black color scheme and blocky cover design, A Small Guide to Homeownership appears to be just another addition to the shelves of “For-Dummies” how-to books. And with a table of contents featuring chapters that progress from “Home Sweet Home: Still the Best Investment You Will Ever Make” to “Protecting Yourself... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Very seldom do we encounter photobooks that not only are a total surprise but can serve to entertain us too. This is one such exceptional example. During the height of the pandemic, Kessels and Sauvin exchanged visuals from their extensive collection of anonymous ‘vernacular’ photographs with each other, and now... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Regretfully 2020 is going to be known as the year of the pandemic and that this is a beast of a year for many reasons. The pandemic affected us all in a myriad of ways, some tragically with a loss in the family, for others a short bout of induced isolation,... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Communicating with one’s parents can be quite a chore, no matter at what age we find ourselves. And for a girl growing up, her dad is that special guy who usually serves as the first example and model of what men might be like later on in her life. This... Continue Reading →
Review by Anne Murray · “understanding” is not linear and has an emotional aspect — Captions— Musings, Philip Perkis a vocabulary of images emerged that was new to me, yet oddly familiar — Notes on Process, Cyrilla Mozenter These lines are excerpts from the final pages of Octave, which brings together the works of Cyrilla Mozenter... Continue Reading →
Welcome to our 26th Issue • We are midway through Spring while Summer is fast approaching. Here in Southern California that means we transition from 'May Gray' to 'June Gloom'; lots of overcast and cooler days, with the really sunny beach weather usually appearing in July. Now is a really good time to select some interesting photobooks to read by... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Once upon a time, itinerant photographers armed with crude homemade cameras worked the street corners and parks around the world, creating inexpensive memorabilia and first-time photographic experiences for the masses. Then came the rise of cheap personal cameras followed by the digital revolution, and these photographers largely disappeared. Now a... Continue Reading →
Review by Debe Arlook • “I love to return to spaces I have already photographed. To see how they change through time. A new crack in the road, a dried bush in the distance…like us, the landscape also changes.” Dino Kužnik’s quote, along with the pastel-pink, card-wraparound cover printed with D I N O, one... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The American painter Robert Henri, who also spent some time in Paris, once said, “When we respect the nude, we will no longer have any shame about it.” This is a principle that also very much applies to the Chinese photographer 9mouth, who has a special affinity for depicting the... Continue Reading →
