The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale • The loss of a parent is always emotionally difficult regardless of one’s age, perhaps especially if this event occurs early in one’s life. The ways an individual can come to terms with the tragic impact varies. For Sarah Hadley an emotional convergence occurred well after her father’s passing at a... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • What defines a city? Civic boosters point to all manner of urban amenities, but highways and freeways are seldom among them. Functional at best, highways are more likely known as noisy, divisive, and unsightly rips in the urban fabric. Yet in the post-World War II era, their impact on American cities... Continue Reading →
Welcome to our Ninth Issue! • We hope you had a wonderful holiday season, which for some of you, may still not be over just yet. We think that the holidays are a great time to find new photobooks or spend time with recent book purchases. As we do each year, we share our annual... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • When I look at this photobook, the old Phil Ochs song as rendered by Joan Baez goes through my head: “There but for fortune go you or I …” (check it out on YouTube). At the end of another fairly difficult year, looking at one’s reflection, at what might have... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • “Say It Loud, I’m Bronx, I’m Proud!” Recently, I was in touch with a college friend who grew up in the Bronx in the 1970s and asked him for five words to describe the place. He chose “Dark, rotten, cheated, drugged out, death.” This is not, however, the Bronx that... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • We find ourselves in a time of greater uncertainty. Thus our anxieties and fears are also greater, and we expect disasters – sudden catastrophes that can come about naturally, accidentally or by intent. Fires, earthquakes, storms and flooding are our main threats here in California; nuclear accidents and military aggression... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Densely packed multi-story apartment buildings are a fact of life in today’s crowded cities. Brazilian photographer Letícia Lampert cleverly explores the paradoxes of vertical living by taking a horizontal view in Conhecidos de Vista (Known by Sight). Lampert adopted the leporello (accordion-fold) book design to construct her own urban neighborhood from... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Every city has one — that neighborhood “everybody” knows to stay away from. It’s too rough, or too hostile, or too unsafe, or just too different in some way or another. For Arnhem, a medium-sized Dutch city near the eastern border with Germany, that neighborhood is Rijnwijk. This insular 100-year-old... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • The occupation of land by a hostile foreign power is a phenomenon that seems to repeat itself, over and over, and thus it is an ever-present danger. In our time, the 20th century was not the end of such outrageous acts, as the occupation of the Crimean Peninsula, part of... Continue Reading →
