The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Wayne Swanson • The everyday landscape is filled with the banal, the kitschy, and the mundane. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be artful and engaging. Philadelphia-based photographer Martin Buday spent two decades traveling around the United States, collecting images that capture the wonder in the ordinary. The result is Prophetic Kingdom, which shows that... Continue Reading →
Review by Kristin Dittrich • The greatest challenge for parents-to-be in starting their own family is to switch back and forth between a wide variety of roles and to combine them harmoniously. For the man, this means that on the one hand he is expected to be a reliable partner, the responsible “head of the... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Visual narration is an exciting endeavor in contemporary photobooks. Fact and fiction can reach some artful intermingling in this area. But while the creation of fiction in verbal narration/literature (short stories, novels, folk tales, to name just a few genres) has been widely accepted for centuries, and the creation of... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Anthropomorphism, that is giving human traits or attributes to animals, is probably most applicable when observing primates, those animals we seem to attribute some of their attributes to us an interesting twist on zoomorphism. All the more when the subjects are observed in confined quarters in which we suspect they have... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Perhaps the greatest compliment one can pay a photographer is to be so inspired by their work that you go out into the world and attempt to make pictures in the same vein. Thus, on Christmas Day, Ken Light’s new photobook Course of the Empire compelled this reviewer to drive downtown, seeking images... Continue Reading →
Happy New Year & our 33th Issue • This is our last Issue for 2021 that includes a review of Matt Black's American Geography, which is one of our Interesting Artist and Photobooks for 2021. We will be starting the New Year off with a review of Ken Light's Course of the Empire another of our Interesting Photobooks for 2021, so stay tuned... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • As we face the end of yet another difficult year, contemplation might be a very good thing. Do we feel comfortable and welcome where we are? How separated do we feel from those around us? Do things feel familiar or strange? Here we have a photobook with a cover that... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Bruce Haley is a photographer known for his international coverage of war and its aftermath. His work during Burma’s bloody civil war in 1990 earned him the coveted Robert Capa Gold Medal. Yet in his quiet personal work he keeps the home fires burning. The lands of his youth and his... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • American Geography, the new Thames and Hudson book by photographer Matt Black, is like the artist himself, both handsome and intimidating. Even the cover, imageless with stark lettering on a surface that is indeed matte black, does not invite the viewer in. Nor does it reassure one that this is a... Continue Reading →
Although we are already half-way through this Holiday, it is still not too late to be wishing you all the very best and Season's Greetings from our book-reviewing family to yours! Cheers & Enjoy good tidings! Paul, Alaina, Debe, Melanie, Gerry, Deborah, Kristin, Madhu, Steve, Rudy, Jonas, Wayne and Doug
PhotoBook Journal 