The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Lee Halvorsen • The images, the book as an object, the story, the people, and the artist weave, then blend together to create the soul of this incredible work of art. Shahria Sharmin spent a dozen years listening to and coming to know people in Bangladesh’s Hijra community. In the Afterword, Sharmin walks... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • The Japanese have a word that perfectly describes how I imagine Willett approached making this book…”Komorebi” (木漏れ日) often translated as sunlight filtering through leaves, creating patterns of dancing light and shadow, and, importantly, a feeling of discovering light in the darkness. In an Afterword, which is a large sticky on... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • This is small book with a very large heart, capturing generations living strong, but challenged, in rural Kansas…far from the bustling crowds but also distanced from metropolitan healthcare. Steward’s Master of Arts, Journalism project found him spending a great deal of time with Larry Engstrom and his family after Larry... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • Wieder’s intimate images and skilled story telling brings persistence, permanence, place, and people to life in Portland’s King School Park. Wieder spent several years photographing folks in the Park, people who return almost daily despite the tsunamis of neighborhood change over the years. Mitchell Jackson grew up in the community;... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp · It takes time for what has been erased to resurface. Patrick Modiano, Dora Bruder Loli Kantor’s Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother has been obstinately staring at me from my desktop for some weeks now. At each encounter, I would fitfully and clumsily try to find a way into... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Julia Mejnertsen’s HUN explores nature, hunting, and the mother / daughter relationship. They are interconnected in the book because Mejnertsen’s mother is an avid hunter. Interestingly, Mejnertsen’s mother appears blind to the moral dilemma of killing animals, including a threatened species such as the African elephant. For her mother, discovering... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Time travel is possible via photos, at least time travel of the mental sort. Photographs from a specific time and place are still there, frozen where and when they were made. With a little imagination you can enter their world, especially when they are packaged as thoughtfully as those in... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · What happens when art tries to avoid becoming Art? That’s what I asked when thinking about Kevin Klipfel’s Sha La La, Man. I have my own ideas by way of an answer, but it is ultimately up to viewers to decide for themselves. The book views like a personal photo... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Photobooks today explore themes that photographers of previous generations never would have imagined. You name it, and some intrepid photographer is turning it into a photobook. There are books, for example, that deal with family relationships, memories of past times, emotional landscapes, and problematic real-life situations. Sunniva Hestenes’ A Tear... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · There are many ways to make a photobook. One is to use photographs to construct meaning through carefully curated repetition and association. You introduce photographs to establish a theme or mood, you develop, and you introduce other themes and variations and build a narrative or story. Photographer Elise Corten’s Warmer... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 