The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Wayne Swanson • The renowned photographic artist Keith Carter has been called a “poet of the ordinary,” and this sumptuous new retrospective is truly an epic poem, lyrical yet down to earth. Fifty Years is epic in size and scale. The 320 unnumbered pages include 267 images from his half-century (so far) career. They... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • I Don't Explain. Urban street art, graffiti and variations of guerrilla art make for a tantalizing photographic subject; intensively colorful, graphic, layered, complex, playful and temporal. Investigating urban site art has a tradition that can be traced back the Abstract Expressionistic photographic work of Aaron Siskind. In the reading of... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • When you first look at the cover of this photobook, a number of unusual features immediately become apparent: The cloth binding is a glorious purple, the color of royal and religious accoutrements. The edges of the pages are graced with glorious gold-leaf, historically the mark of a very important book.... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • TJ Norris has recently released his first monograph, Shooting Blanks, that investigates the potential abstract and graphic patterns created by commercial signage that is in a state of disuse or disrepair, aspects of the modern urban landscape. That these signs are now “blank” is a small aspect of this body... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • I had the good fortune to discover Dia Yunzhi Wang at the Photo LA Show in February 2019, at the SoPhoto Gallery (Beijing), managed and curated by Hongjie Ma, eminent photographer and Chinese National Geographic editor. Her work impressed me immediately – she effectively handles the range from contemporary cultural... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • It takes an outsider to get to the heart of things. A photographer from the Eastern United States, Isaac Diggs takes a refreshing look at a street photography subject often marked by clichés: Los Angeles. In fact, this photobook has the subtitle, Photographs from Los Angeles. Diggs, who has created... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • One of the many pleasures of photo-books is the sense that they wait for you. In a pile or on a shelf, we see the title on the binding and it calmly states “When you are ready, open me and enter in.” In the case of renowned Magnum photographer Harry... Continue Reading →
Review by Dan Johns & Douglas Stockdale • This book and the images within define a generation. The myopic, narcissistic psychological disposition of a generation is clearly the focal point of these photos; the mobile phone photographer, the “viewer”, although without name or discernable form, plays a major role in the story: not the Louvre;... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Callous attitudes toward our natural environment and a non-scientific ignorance regarding current and impending climate calamities are prevalent these days. Economic and population pressures and interests in short-term economic gain also abound. These are recognized as contributing to the demise of humans and other creatures. Encroachment on habitats, competition for... Continue Reading →
Guest review by Paul Anderson • Cameraless Photography by Martin Barnes is an historical survey of cameraless photography, and the written introduction provides an excellent overview of this genre. The subsequent 141 illustrations of cameraless photography are drawn from the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The book concludes with a four-page glossary... Continue Reading →
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