The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Wayne Swanson • Around 2006, San Francisco photographer Alan Ostreicher got a simple idea: Why not document life in his apartment? It would be a personal project, not necessarily intended for anyone beyond him and his wife. Who else would want to capture such mundane subject matter anyway? Jump ahead to the pandemic of... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • It could be argued that every painting has an element of theater as to how the various elements of composition have been carefully chosen to represent something factual or conceptual. Even the most contemporary abstract expressionistic painting has an underlying theatrical process taken into consideration at the time of the... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Is trying to explain Garry Winogrand’s photographs an interesting challenge or a fool’s errand? After all, Winogrand repeatedly rebuffed attempts to philosophize about his work with statements like “You’re talking about meaning. I want to talk about the pictures.” Nevertheless, Geoff Dyer gives it a shot in this big book of... Continue Reading →
Welcome! It's another month as we continue our different "reopening" phases during the days of COVID-19, although there appears to be changes slowly occurring. I continue to hear of the issues and problems encountered by self-publishing artists, small publishing imprints, indie bookstores and even the larger publishing groups have been impacted. This has been a really... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • The late Ralph Eugene (Gene) Meatyard, 1925 – 1972, was an optician whose personal artistic quest has had an extended impact on contemporary photography. In 1972, at the time of Meatyard’s passing, my personal interest in the creative aspects of photography were just beginning to take shape. At that time,... Continue Reading →
Welcome to our 13th Issue; We continue our quarantine mode during the days of COVID-19. This month we have another diverse selection of photobooks, ranging from Australia conceptual landscapes, the genre of the nude, one painted and the other investigating athleticism, as well as two narratives on the concept of dust, WWII reimagined, and a conceptual contemplation... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Anyone who has put in time on the portfolio review circuit has probably encountered Jonathan Blaustein. He’s that rather intense reviewer with the moustache and goatee who is never at a loss for words, and always quick with a thumbs up or down on your work. He’s also the guy you... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • German photographer Florian Schwarz takes on the entire universe in his new book A Handful of Dust. Schwarz spent four years traveling to observatories in some of the most remote places on Earth. These observatories, operated by the Las Cumbres Observatory Foundation (LOC) in Santa Barbara, span the globe to allow... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • In Melissa Borman’s self-published book, A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter, she captures her subjects being actively engaged with the natural landscape as a metaphor for the elements of life. A Piece of Dust, a component of her book’s title, is to place a focus on... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • I believe a photobook based on a body of work that explores the nude form has some high esthetical and contemporary hurdles to overcome; a genre of art that predates photography itself. The nude and semi-nude, both male and female, are frequently subjects for photographers for a wide variety of... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 