The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Wayne Swanson • Ben Brody understands the chaos, absurdity, and surrealism of war. He was a combat photographer covering the United States’ involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, which resulted in his acclaimed photobook Attention Servicemember (reviewed here). His new book is an epilogue to that one, and a fitting way to sum up United States’ ill begotten... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Revisiting a place you have seen before is always full of many surprises. My wife and I have been to Athens a number of times and find the experience always exhilaratingly different; alas, as one would expect, even our relatives there are never quite the same as on the previous... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • In the spring of 1975, a budding photographer from Cheyenne, Wyoming, just 21 years old, checked in to a single-room occupancy hotel in Hollywood. During her three-month stay there she created portraits of her fellow residents that launched what would be a long and successful career. “All I had to do was... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • At times some of us feel a certain nostalgia and want to go back to our youth. We long to be boys or girls again, thinking that things were simpler in our youth. We imagine that life was more innocent and more harmonious than what we now face as adults.... 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 →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • The tide comes in, the tide goes out We are on this earth temporarily And then, we are no more. Only the sirens, muses and heroes remain in liminal space. How does one elegize a dear friend? What might one write about a fellow writer? What could be the possible images... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The categories of genders and gender-related behaviors and preferences are not as binary as some would have us believe. According to Western psychology, we all have both male and female sides; either side can predominate or be more pronounced at times in individuals. The same is true of a variety... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Arab Spring. The Mexican-U.S. border crises. Ongoing strife in Africa. And now the exodus from Ukraine to escape the Russian assault. What to do with all these refugees? Germany, in the wake of the wave of emigration caused by Arab Spring uprisings in 2015, emerged as a beacon of hope by... Continue Reading →
Review by Kristin Dittrich • While visiting the first “Photobook Fest“ on May 22, 2022, a new art fair at ICP New York dedicated to the contemporary photobook, I discovered this wonderful small photobook, like a zine, with the title Fragments. This project tells a strong and visually beautiful story about the immigration of a woman... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • Have you found yourself alone, walking through a familiar urban environment, hardly aware of your surroundings? You walk on autopilot, along a route well known to you, passing by warehouses, office buildings, commercial establishments, and housing complexes with hardly a glance. Your thoughts become introspective, and you are literally absorbed in... Continue Reading →
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