It is about this time of year that the various publishers, photographers and photobook collectors gather in wait to see which of the photobooks will be singled out as a "Best of 2010" on somebody's (or hopefully many) of the lists that are published by photobook reviewers (including yours truly), magazines, bloggers and other indicators of public opinion.... Continue Reading →
Swann Photobook auction – December 9, 2010
Reminder that Swann Galleries is having their last Photobook (Photographic Literature) auction for the year on December 9th, 2010, in NYC. This auction is concurrent with a photographic print auction. One photobook of interest: a signed copy of Andy Warhol’s America (estimate: $2,000 -3,000) and Index (estimate: $2,500 – 3,500) Also various numbers of Alfred Stieglitz's... Continue Reading →
Simon Harsent – Melt
Copyright Simon Harsent 2010 Pool Productions courtesy photo-eye (http://www.photoeye.com/magazine/reviews/2010/11_18_Melt.cfm) After leaving the Midwest over twenty-five years ago for Southern California, I am now content to visit the snow on our annual ski trips. I have fond memories of the first snow or awaking with a fresh white blanket covering our yard, but I recall with... Continue Reading →
Erik van der Weijde – Der Baum
Copyright Erik van der Weijde 2010 courtesy 4478ZINE and the artist In Germany in the 1910’s and into the early 1930’s a series of books were published by Karl Robert Langewiesche by his publishing house Verlag Langewiesche Nachfolger. In the late 1920’s Langewiesche came up with the idea of creating inexpensive books to bring culture and self-improvement to... Continue Reading →
Mona Kuhn – Photographs
Copyright Mona Kuhn 2004 published by Steidl In 2004, Mona Kuhn published her first photobook Photographs with the German publisher Steidl. Subsequently Steidl has published two additional Kuhn titles Evidence and most recently Native. Photographs is a body of work this was developed over a period of over six years and draws from two of her then current portfolios Black... Continue Reading →
Jock Sturges – The Last Day of Summer
Copyright Jock Sturges 1991 published by Aperture This review of Jock Sturges’s first photobook, The Last Day of Summer, published by Aperture in 1991, is an introduction to his many photobooks. This photobook is his first and now nearing twenty years in print. As part of the background story one social element that Sturges shares with... Continue Reading →
Kerim Aytac – To See Here
Copyright Kerim Aytac To See Here 2010 Straightline Press, courtesy of the artist. I have found Kerim Aytac’s recent photobook, To see Here, as ambiguous and minimal as his background story; “street photography that questions the value of the subject”. The book is an adaption of his project Nothing to See Here, which is about looking and what... Continue Reading →
Charles Grogg – After Ascension and Descent
Copyright Charles Grogg 2010 self-published and courtesy of the artist Charles Grogg’s first self-published first photobook After Ascension and Decent is a series of photographs that poses questions and subsequent elicits a narrative about connections. Frequently Grogg manipulates his Black and White photographs, where as digital photographs may have manipulated and altered the content, Grogg will actually alter the surface... Continue Reading →
Jasper Howard – Photo Books International
Jasper Howard Copyright 2010 Douglas Stockdale Located near the heart of London is a quaint and almost quintessential London book seller, but with a wonderful focus that is exclusively on photobooks. This is a small, well organized and run book shoppe, just as I have imagined my distant relative John Stockdale, publisher and bookseller of Piccadilly in the late 1700's in London. Photo Books... Continue Reading →
Harvey Benge – Birds
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Harvey Benge’s latest self published photobook (perhaps termed a zine) Birds is brief, elegant and subtly philosophical. Benge provides a brief background story for this slim narrative; that the photographs were made on one day from the deck of a ferry near Auckland Harbour and the photographs were made on the afternoon... Continue Reading →
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