The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Not too long ago, the term “abandoned moments” meant images that we would toss aside: subject not significant enough, not sharp enough, some blurring or out-of-focus areas, camera movement, and more. Well, nowadays that is the stuff that the finest photographic art is made of; they are the central techniques... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Living in Southern California, I have a familiarity with border walls, specifically the American-Mexican wall that lies less than 100 miles south of my home. After relocating to California, a trip to the Tijuana tourist shops in near-by Mexico was usually on the list of go-to places for visiting relatives, parking... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • The everyday landscape is filled with the banal, the kitschy, and the mundane. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be artful and engaging. Philadelphia-based photographer Martin Buday spent two decades traveling around the United States, collecting images that capture the wonder in the ordinary. The result is Prophetic Kingdom, which shows that... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Anthropomorphism, that is giving human traits or attributes to animals, is probably most applicable when observing primates, those animals we seem to attribute some of their attributes to us an interesting twist on zoomorphism. All the more when the subjects are observed in confined quarters in which we suspect they have... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Perhaps the greatest compliment one can pay a photographer is to be so inspired by their work that you go out into the world and attempt to make pictures in the same vein. Thus, on Christmas Day, Ken Light’s new photobook Course of the Empire compelled this reviewer to drive downtown, seeking images... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Bruce Haley is a photographer known for his international coverage of war and its aftermath. His work during Burma’s bloody civil war in 1990 earned him the coveted Robert Capa Gold Medal. Yet in his quiet personal work he keeps the home fires burning. The lands of his youth and his... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • American Geography, the new Thames and Hudson book by photographer Matt Black, is like the artist himself, both handsome and intimidating. Even the cover, imageless with stark lettering on a surface that is indeed matte black, does not invite the viewer in. Nor does it reassure one that this is a... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • There can be no doubt that our relationship with other creatures, the “animals,” is in need of improvement, and when optimal, gives great joy and a calm feeling to all participants. Even though many have seen such creature parallels before, such as Winogrand in The Animals, similarities and shared emotions... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • A cross country road trip, perhaps conceptually relating to Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’, is an opportunity to view, witness and document an ensuing social and environmental landscape. What if that road trip is through a country that appears to be almost devoid of vegetation, animals and man-kind, a region that is... Continue Reading →
Reviewed by Steve Harp • North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) seems in many ways as distant and inaccessible – to Americans, at least – as the moon. And like the moon, I have long had a kind of ambivalent desire to experience it first-hand. A desire, that is, as long as it is unlikely. Should... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 