The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale • During the COVID-19 pandemic a number of creative projects resulted from the forced need to isolate from one another that substantially reduced our ability to have personal interactions. One such project is the collaborative endeavor by Dawn Surratt and Sal Taylor Kydd that resulted in their self-published book A Passing Song. Similar... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Though we may wish that it were not so, now is not the age of poetry. We live in bombastic times. Giant waves crash, rivers flood, forests burn, plagues descend. We reach for metaphor and instead are inundated with product placement versions of morality; superheroes peddle mega merch. Collagen lips... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Puberty and coming of age—a time to look inward as one reaches out to the world. We are not all the same, and in accepting and welcoming various different orientations, we may reach some levels of discomfort as we reexamine old stereotypes and preconceived categories into which we previously may... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Who has not flown over America’s Great Plains witnessing the immense circular patterns created by the farmers and wondered if these were the inspiration for the abstract artists of the Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s and the Color Field paintings of the 1960s? For me, these aerial perspectives recall the abstract... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • At first glance, Impermanence seems an unlikely title for a monograph honoring the 50-year career of a master photographer and platinum printer whose work has stood the test of time. And quite a substantial book it is, weighing in at more than seven pounds and featuring 220 quadtone images lusciously reproduced on 12... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp • I discovered the work of Ragnar Axelsson in a slim volume I came across in a small photo bookstore/gallery in Reykjavik in 2014. A part of the Photo Poche Series, published by Crymogea, it was titled simply Ragnar Axelsson. I loved the book’s compact size – it suggested to me nothing so much as a sketchbook,... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • How does one get the Tower Bridge of London to dance? Thomas Kellner has found a way, and it can be seen in his 2021 book Tango Metropolis. Kellner’s reworked image of the iconic London landmark turns the bridge into something straight out of a fairy tale, transforming the bridge’s towers into... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Raising kids is hard even without additional challenges, such as multiple food allergies and some learning difficulties. When these are added to a mother’s slate, the task can seem more than overwhelming, much worse than endless piles of dishes and pots and pans in the kitchen. Yet Sandra Bacchi not... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Why would someone carry a 258-page hardcover photobook with them across an ocean and throughout four countries when much of the photographer’s work is accessible on-line? When the book is the new retrospective Vivian Maier published by Thames and Hudson, the only appropriate response is “Why Not?!” - As the “someone” who... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • What moment can be more appropriate than a major holiday to write about a book of 50+ years of photographs documenting the happenings at an iconic American mecca for folks living out their holiday fantasies? The beach and entertainment areas known as Coney Island are located at the southwestern tip of... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 