The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale • While preparing this book review of Regina Anzenberger’s family album titled Under the Apple Tree, I was reminded of the stilted circumstance of taking family pictures while photographing my own family after an Easter Egg hunt. Capturing a family event for ‘posterity’ when attempting to photography ‘candid’ moments of individuals who are... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Reviewing Jason Paul Reimer’s book Excavation: A Journey Through Loss is not the first time that I have seen this body of work. While jurying an earlier photobook competition for Los Angeles Center of Photography, Reimer’s project was submitted as a book-dummy/singular-artist-book. It was juried into the subsequent exhibition as well as garnering... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Crumple the Dress, Handle Tenderly the Lens Arresting Beauty, the new Thames and Hudson publication of photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) is truly a thing of beauty to behold and be held. Drawing from the archives of the Victoria and Albert Museum (home to the world’s largest collection of Cameron’s... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Parents always worry about their children, since the world is full of challenges. Once the kids are out there in the big wide world, away from the protective nest that was their home of origin, these parental worries become intensified. Sonia Lenzi has produced this effective visual essay that expresses... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Think back to your childhood, and there likely is a special place in your memory. A place of play, of adventure, of wonder, of self-discovery, and perhaps even of danger. For photographic artist C Fodoreanu, Lake Sacalaia was such a place. The deepest fresh-water lake in Transylvania, Lake Sacalaia is steeped in... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale · Just like with marriage, our kids do not arrive with user’s manual. It also seems, from my own experience, that the older our children become, the more out of (our) control that they seem to evolve. Which in turn, can be crazy making for both the parents as well as the... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Raising kids is hard even without additional challenges, such as multiple food allergies and some learning difficulties. When these are added to a mother’s slate, the task can seem more than overwhelming, much worse than endless piles of dishes and pots and pans in the kitchen. Yet Sandra Bacchi not... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Why would someone carry a 258-page hardcover photobook with them across an ocean and throughout four countries when much of the photographer’s work is accessible on-line? When the book is the new retrospective Vivian Maier published by Thames and Hudson, the only appropriate response is “Why Not?!” - As the “someone” who... Continue Reading →
Review by Micah McCoy • While Odette England’s Dairy Character may first seem a pointed feminist critique of dairy farm culture, a deeper investigation of the text reveals the nuance necessary to adequately address the author’s complex relationship with her past. Odette was raised a farmer’s daughter on her parents’ Australian dairy farm. Her upbringing came with expectations... Continue Reading →
Reviewed by Rudy Vega • The cover of Julie Blackmon’s Midwest Materials depicts the following: four children-all of which have their faces turned away from us, the viewers. They are caught in mid-stride–two girls skipping towards the wall of the building marked by the name of the book- Midwest Materials, while another has arms stretched skyward... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 