The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Hans Hickerson · Time travel is possible via photos, at least time travel of the mental sort. Photographs from a specific time and place are still there, frozen where and when they were made. With a little imagination you can enter their world, especially when they are packaged as thoughtfully as those in... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · What happens when art tries to avoid becoming Art? That’s what I asked when thinking about Kevin Klipfel’s Sha La La, Man. I have my own ideas by way of an answer, but it is ultimately up to viewers to decide for themselves. The book views like a personal photo... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian F. O’Neill · There has been a surge of image-text photobooks in the market in recent years. In some, the texts and images operate rather independently, while perhaps still holding onto some underlying issue. In others, the text is treated as an opportunity for a more traditional analytical “lens” on the subject... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • Remembrance, ephemerality and transitions are what come to mind when looking through this beautifully executed photography book by Elliot Ross. The enigmatic objects that are central to all these images are crows. The monochromatic images are elegant, have simple compositions, and gracefully employ motion blur that imparts a spiritual feeling... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · What is the difference between a photobook and a zine? When you consider it, there does not seem to be a clear line separating the two. For zines you think of something cheaply produced, sometimes handmade, in limited quantities, and with less focused and more informal content than books. Books... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • As always, one has to take a very deep dive into people’s psyche, including one’s own, to understand the art of Roger Ballen. His latest publication, Spirits and Spaces, continues his exploration of the human psyche and the ambiguous terrain in which dreams, nightmares, and realities intersect. Ballen has always... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Photobooks today explore themes that photographers of previous generations never would have imagined. You name it, and some intrepid photographer is turning it into a photobook. There are books, for example, that deal with family relationships, memories of past times, emotional landscapes, and problematic real-life situations. Sunniva Hestenes’ A Tear... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Kevin Bubriski has long been recognized for his special ability to document various groups and communities with sensitivity and respect, from Nepal to the American heartland. In The New Mexicans, his attentive look is focused on the people and landscapes of New Mexico, capturing the early 1980s in a photographic... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · When he made the photographs published in his book The Waning Season, Oliver Gerhartz probably did not imagine that they would become an elegy for a brief period of relative calm between the fall of a dictatorship and a brutal civil war. Gerhartz was in Khartoum, Sudan, working as an... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • New York City, Manhattan, September 11, 2001. In just a few hours Manhattan went from the daily norm to horrendous, tragic chaos and terror with a rising spirit of unity and support. A writing journalist at the time, Holger Biermann was in the City, walking the streets with thousands of... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 