The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Steve Harp · Oyvind Hjelmen’s 2024 monograph Being Here begins with a poem by the Norwegian Nobel laureate Jon Fosse. The poem, A Human Being is Here, begins: A human being is hereand then disappearsin a windthat vanishesinward There is a sense of disappearing, of vanishing also in Hjelman’s elegant photographs contained within... Continue Reading →
Review by Paul Anderson • Photographers and painters have long grappled with the representation of time. Photographer Ulf Lundin, in his photo book Best of Sweden, cleverly incorporates time in his composited landscape images. He does so by capturing multiple events and changes in light across a single Swedish landscape over one day, working these... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Photobooks are a great medium for telling stories, but also for re-creating emotional landscapes. Alex Blanco’s Meat, Fish, and Aubergine Caviar does both and also mixes in memories, cookbook recipes, and idealized fantasy. If this sounds like a lot it is because the book operates simultaneously on several levels, like... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp · Geir Jordahl’s 2025 monograph The Endless Sphere of Time is an imposing volume, ten inches square and an inch and a half thick in its hard, cloth-covered slipcase. Even before looking inside, the book reminds me of nothing so much as an atlas, a bound collection of maps. In particular,... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian Arnold · Imagine, if you will, a couple stripped down to their underwear, together leaning against a tree along a lakeside beach in Cheryomushki, Siberia. It’s hard to determine the variety of tree but it bends like it was designed to cradle the woman. The couple looks a little intoxicated, giving the... Continue Reading →
Review by Janesa Brosnan · Thames & Hudson’s photobook Erwin Blumenfeld captures the historical and moving perspective in Erwin Blumenfeld’s work. His love of expression, artistic vision, and experimentation is seen throughout all the photos selected. The book goes through the decades and locations of Blumenfeld's work ranging from Amsterdam in the 20s to New... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · If you haven’t visited Fairfield, Illinois, you might be excused for thinking it looks like Nathan Pearce’s photographs. I hadn’t, so I googled Fairfield and traveled down Main Street via Street View. I did not spot any vegan restaurants, food carts, indie record stores, e-bike shops, or comedy clubs. But... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • You’re in the eye of the storm…you’ve seen the chaos and change that just occurred and in the not-too-far distance, you see more coming. Through Gray’s images, this is the storm’s eye view of mankind’s interaction with the planet and the mostly uncertain nature of that contact. You're standing on the... Continue Reading →
Review by Rudy Vega · Lycien-David Cséry’s Cracks and Dents is a meditation on imperfection, but it’s also a study in abstraction—one that draws as much from the language of painting as it does from photography. Taken between 2016 and 2018, the images document the dents, rust, and impromptu repairs found on the surfaces of... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Context is everything, and without it you are lost. If you look at the 48 photographs in John Volynchook’s Faultlines by themselves, you would not know what country you were in, or even what century. They depict timeless views of nature, all except two photographs where you see tractor tire... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 