Review by Hans Hickerson · Wow. There is a lot to like about Kevin Cooley’s The Wizard of Awe. A happy marriage of book design, storytelling, and photography, it elevates the photobook conversation to a level higher than anything I have seen in a long time. For starters the cover is spectacular. It shows falling... Continue Reading →
Horst Klein — Rotkäppchen Românesc
Review by Lee Halvorsen • Rotkäppchen Românesc is a spellbinding photographic railroad journey in today’s Romania. Horst Klein made these images over several years as he traveled by train in wintertime Romania to remote and sometimes semi-abandoned train stations and train landscapes. These are not typical train photos but rather brief glimpses through the train windows... Continue Reading →
Luis Corzo – Pasaco, 1996
Review by Hans Hickerson · It is a good sign when you start looking at a book and cannot put it down. That is what happened to me with Luis Corzo’s photobook, Pasaco, 1996. Corzo uses photos and texts, in English and Spanish, to tell the story of his and his father’s kidnapping for ransom... Continue Reading →
Anna Arendt – Vanishing
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The press release for this photobook states, “Vanishing is an unforgettable depiction of how beauty and brutality coexist in the hearts of men and beasts.” I would go even further: Vanishing is the definitive depiction of the range from every imaginable positive daydream through the weightiest nightmares possible, from the... Continue Reading →
Pia-Paulina Guilmoth – flowers drink in the river
Review by Brian Arnold · The earthIs made of earthAnd I like that stuff Adrian Mitchell, “Stufferation” It’s hard to fully describe the complexity that abounds in flowers drink the river, a book of photographs by Pia-Paulina Guilmoth, published by Stanley/Barker and designed by Ramel-Luzoir. It is a rich and compelling story about personal... Continue Reading →
Stephen Voss – The Haunting of Verdant Valley
Review by Brian O’Neill · Stephen Voss is a photojournalist. You may have seen his work and portraits in Newsweek, Time, The Washington Post Magazine, and more. As a critic and collector of photobooks, I have a few books by photojournalists on my shelves. Perhaps you do too. They often follow a familiar format of,... Continue Reading →
L. A. Art Book Fair 2025
Text and photo essay by Hans Hickerson · Along with other art book publishers, the Printed Matter Art Book Fair at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena hosted some four dozen photobook publishers this year, plenty to keep a photobook pilgrim busy for a couple of days. Looking at photobooks can be an... Continue Reading →
Nora Bibel – Uncertain Homelands
Review by Brian O’Neill · Climate change, and various aspects of it, from forest fires, to drought, to adaptive landscaping and technologies, as well as oil extraction, have become more and more common within the world of fine art and documentary photography. Often, photographic projects oriented around climate change take an approach to human stories... Continue Reading →
Keiran Perry – Smoke Filled Mirror
Review by Gerhard Clausing • For many of us the circus is a special experience full of magic. Some of us have at times felt a longing to be part of such a group of itinerant individuals that create illusions and bring special feats into what for most of us was the rather humdrum existence... Continue Reading →
Mark Cohen – Tall Socks
Review by Hans Hickerson · A time, a place, and a point of view all meet in a photograph. The time and place can be obvious, but the point of view part can get complicated, as it involves technical, artistic, and personal considerations that are in turn themselves the product of times and places. The... Continue Reading →