The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Welcome to our 12th issue • This is our 12th issue, marking the first year of our magazine format. No one anticipated that on our first anniversary the entire world would be struggling with a COVID-19 pandemic. I would like to think this event has provided many of you with more book-reading time and an... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Backstory: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things is a new edition book of classic short, Japanese, horror stories written by Lafcadio Hearn over a century ago. Hearn was an Irishman who was born in Greece, grew up in Ireland, and emigrated to the US where he became a writer. He... Continue Reading →
Copyright Hiroshi Watanabe 2014 co-published by Daylight Books and Tosei-sha Publishing Co., Ltd First I need to declare that I may be a tad bit biased in my photobook review as I was one of the text editors for this book. Hiroshi Watanabe’s (b. Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan 1951, currently resides in Los Angeles since 1975)... Continue Reading →
Copyright Hiroshi Watanabe 2002, self-published This is another in my series of reviews of Limited Edition photobooks. This limited edition book and print set was self-published by Hiroshi Watanabe using early Print-on-Demand (POD) services available at that time in Japan. The title of the book coincided with his L.A. photographic exhibition of the same name... Continue Reading →
copyright the photographers Earlier this year I had the great pleasure to be included in a iPad App project that brought together my friend and photographer Hirohsi Watanabe, videographer Michal Kastenam and myself, as the interviewer, to expand on an earlier Watanabe photobook Findings a photobook which I had reviewed in 2009. Watanabe was a Critical Mass winner and the resulting... Continue Reading →
Copyright Hiroshi Watanabe 2008 published by Mado-sha Co. Ltd With the recent the passing of Kim Jong II and the changes to the family leadership in North Korea I am motivated by an opportunity to review an earlier photobook by Hiroshi Watanabe who was allowed “access” to travel and photograph within North Korea in 2007. Hiroshi states,... Continue Reading →
Copyright Hiroshi Watanabe 2010, courtesy Hiroshi Watanabe and Toesi-sha Publishing On first viewing of Hiroshi Watanabe’s Love Point I find his studio portraits beautiful and aesthetically wonderful with a mysterious charm. Watanabe’s photographic studio portraits appear somehow familiar. The black & white photographs are formal and stylistically similar to his previously published work; Kabuki Players (actors in costume), Noh... Continue Reading →
Photographs copyright of Hiroshi Watanabe courtesy of Photolucida Hiroshi Watanabe's book Finding published by Photolucida is the grand prize winner of the 2006 Critical Mass. While reading this I find that I am always looking at life through a veil. There always seems to be something between me and what I think the subject is. Which may be overlooking one the... Continue Reading →
