The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
From Flying Pictures by Daniel Gordon, 2009 published by powerHouse Books Daedalus with his son Icarus had to flee Crete and the solution to their problem was the wings that Daedalus fashioned to allow them to safely fly to freedom. Nevertheless, Daedalus had to admonish his son Icarus to not fly too close to the sun,... Continue Reading →
Copyright Lewis Koch 2009 courtesy Lewis Koch & Borderland Books The subtitle to Lewis Koch’s Touchless Automatic Wonder is “Found text photographs from the real world”. There is no doubt that Koch is attuned to the abundant text that we swim through on a daily basis, to notice those juxtapositions that naturally occur, or with... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Inside the window is a beautiful wedding dress, but this simple window is framed by a neutral toned cinderblock and wood wall with an exposed adjacent electrical box. The surrounding ground is a patchwork of grass and dirt, with a barren tree lurking on the edges of the fame. This... Continue Reading →
Copyright of Per Englund, 2009 courtesy of Per Englund and Dokument Press Per Englund spent a couple of summers photographing Cape Town, South Africa and his photobook Life Geos On provides an investigation of the urban cultural landscape paired with a gritty introspection of the social scene. The book’s subtitle Snapshots from Cape Town, infers... Continue Reading →
Copyright Hiroshi Watanabe 2010, courtesy Hiroshi Watanabe and Toesi-sha Publishing On first viewing of Hiroshi Watanabe’s Love Point I find his studio portraits beautiful and aesthetically wonderful with a mysterious charm. Watanabe’s photographic studio portraits appear somehow familiar. The black & white photographs are formal and stylistically similar to his previously published work; Kabuki Players (actors in costume), Noh... Continue Reading →
Edizioni Punctum - Guy Tillim's Roma, Citta di Mezzo While I was researching Guy Tillim's 2009 Roma, Citta di Mezzo, published by Edizioni Punctum, I came across a really awesome image, above, that was posted on photo-eye that I feel elegantly illustrates the complexity of this Concertina folding (Note: At the time of this post I had... Continue Reading →
Copyright Graciela Iturbide 2008, courtesy Edizioni Punctum It is always interesting for me to compare how two photobook publishers manage the design and layout of the same photographer’s body of work. In this case, it is the publication of Garciela Iturbide’s bathroom of Frida Kahlo by ROSEGALLERY titled El Bano de Frida Kahlo and Edizioni... Continue Reading →
Copyright Hyunjin Kim, courtesy Farewell Books Similar to the previous Farewell book that I recently reviewed of Noriko Takazawa’s Sensation, Kim Hyunjin’s Even Your Ears is a study in contextual minimalism, with the book’s title as the only clue for the accompanying photographs. This book does not have an introduction, artistic statement, captions or accompanying... Continue Reading →
Copyright Noriko Takazawa 2009 courtesy Farewell Books Noriko Takazawa’s recent book (booklet), Sensation, published by Farwell, provides only the one word title to create a context to understand this body of photographs. Thinking that I knew the meaning of the word and what it might signify, I did a quick sanity check; Sensation, meaning “a... Continue Reading →
Copyright Rob Hornstra 2008 courtesy of Rob Hornstra In 2008 Rob Hornstra successfully self published his photobook 101 Billionaires, which was well received and the first edition was sold out in early 2009. Economic fate dealt Hornstra a very nice lead-in for his slightly revised second edition. The world’s economic crisis in 2009 substantially reduced... Continue Reading →
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