The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Olga Bubich · Every artistic technique doesn’t enter the creatives’ practice by itself. Its emergence is usually determined by a few historical, social, and cultural factors, as well as by individual searches for a form capable of translating one’s inner and outer worlds. And collage is no exception. As a method, it was... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · How do you determine what a photobook means? Do you read the publisher’s press release and then look at the book? Or do you look at the book to see what’s there and ignore the PR? That’s what I usually do. I figure the book is the final authority, that... Continue Reading →
Yes, it is that time of year again – “Best-of List Time” – and time for us to present our list of interesting photobooks for the past year. As in past years, the books spotlighted feature exemplary form and content, design and photography, vision and execution. Our all-volunteer editorial team has done their best to... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · In much the same way that the Internet has democratized speech but also cheapened it, the ability to produce photobooks easily today is a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because photographers can package and share their work with fewer barriers. It is a curse because everyone is... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Getting in touch with your inner self is not an easy task. Meditation is one of the ways that makes this possible, and Axel Kirchhoff has successfully photographed people at various stages of confronting their inner being. This photobook presents whole-body images as well as close-up portraits of dozens of... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · The Johnny Chronicles, An Anthology of Love and Absurdity, is a good reminder that one way to evaluate art is to look at how it communicates or offers consequential human experience. The Johnny Chronicles definitely does this. The book fits into the narrative / documentary photobook tradition and you can... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp · Scott Offen’s 2025 monograph Grace is a lovely book. As an object, its beauty confronts the viewer from the first look – the “porthole” opening cut into the cover gives a view of a tipped-in, beautifully subtle gray-scale image beckoning mysteriously to the viewer. The image, of a large, leafy... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • The images, the book as an object, the story, the people, and the artist weave, then blend together to create the soul of this incredible work of art. Shahria Sharmin spent a dozen years listening to and coming to know people in Bangladesh’s Hijra community. In the Afterword, Sharmin walks... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • The Japanese have a word that perfectly describes how I imagine Willett approached making this book…”Komorebi” (木漏れ日) often translated as sunlight filtering through leaves, creating patterns of dancing light and shadow, and, importantly, a feeling of discovering light in the darkness. In an Afterword, which is a large sticky on... Continue Reading →
Review by Sebastian Boute and Matt Schneider · Thus, whether riding or walking, the process becomes about forms of reflection. Importantly, it is about the obstruction/mediation. Perhaps it is this kind of limitation that makes knowledge possible – that enacts a kind of deep inscription, if not a mapping, in the artist/writer/photographer/documentarian. And so, what... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 