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 →
Bruce Haley – Home Fires, Vol II: The Present
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 →
Matt Black – American Geography
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 →
Happy Holidays and Season’s Greetings!
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
Sage Sohier – Peaceable Kingdom
Review by Gerhard Clausing • There can be no doubt that our relationship with other creatures, the “animals,” is in need of improvement, and when optimal, gives great joy and a calm feeling to all participants. Even though many have seen such creature parallels before, such as Winogrand in The Animals, similarities and shared emotions... Continue Reading →
Gabriele Chiapparini & Camilla Marrese – I Might Have Seen Something
Review by Douglas Stockdale • A cross country road trip, perhaps conceptually relating to Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’, is an opportunity to view, witness and document an ensuing social and environmental landscape. What if that road trip is through a country that appears to be almost devoid of vegetation, animals and man-kind, a region that is... Continue Reading →
Florian Bachmeier – In Limbo
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Uncertainty and anxiety mark the life of the people of Ukraine, especially these days. Getting international attention, it is a crucial moment in the progress of a country that has been through so much already. The suspense is evident and well caught in the images in this project by Florian... Continue Reading →
Andy Mattern – Average Subject / Medium Distance
Review by Paul Anderson • How did mid-20th century photographic technology, popular aesthetic influences, and corporate priorities combine to shape public opinion on "good" photography? Andy Mattern’s work considers the influence of a once-popular photographic tool on the burgeoning field of amateur and professional photography from the 1940s through the 1980s. The subjects of his work... Continue Reading →
Ted Lau – Between Doors
Reviewed by Steve Harp • North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) seems in many ways as distant and inaccessible – to Americans, at least – as the moon. And like the moon, I have long had a kind of ambivalent desire to experience it first-hand. A desire, that is, as long as it is unlikely. Should... Continue Reading →
Ben P. Ward – I Dream of Dust
Review by Wayne Swanson • Colorado may be known as a land of snow-capped peaks, ski slopes, and the mystique of a certain bland beer brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water. But that’s just the half of it. Head east from Denver, and you enter another world. A flat, semi-arid world. A world of dust. ... Continue Reading →