The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Copyright Rania Matar 2009 courtesy The Quantuck Lane Press In recent years, we have become very familiar with a recent spin on combat photography; the embedded photojournalist; one who is assigned to and lives with a military unit which is in an active combat zones and is sanctioned by the military. The role and definition... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • I recently received another self-published photobook by the prolific photographer and photobook publisher, Havery Benge, titled Sri Lanka Diary, February 2011. This book is the latest in his “Diary” series and results from his recent visit to Sri Lanka earlier this year. The color photographs appear to be detailed and created in documentary in style,... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Harvey Benge’s latest self published photobook (perhaps termed a zine) Birds is brief, elegant and subtly philosophical. Benge provides a brief background story for this slim narrative; that the photographs were made on one day from the deck of a ferry near Auckland Harbour and the photographs were made on the afternoon... Continue Reading →
Copyright Andrew Bush 2008 courtesy Yale University Press The concept of photographing those who co-exist with us on the crowded and packed Freeways, Highways and Expressways in the urban centers of the United States is intriguing and the subject of Andrew Bush’s photobook Drive. In particular, Bush is photographing his own locale area of Southern California,... Continue Reading →
Copyright Andrew Phelps, 2009 courtesy Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg For my liking, Andrew Phelps’s introduction, printed on the inside book cover, places this entire photobook into an insightful context, “ But what does it mean to photograph with the pretense of documentation? I find it is easy to get caught up in chasing an illusion of... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Inside the window is a beautiful wedding dress, but this simple window is framed by a neutral toned cinderblock and wood wall with an exposed adjacent electrical box. The surrounding ground is a patchwork of grass and dirt, with a barren tree lurking on the edges of the fame. This... Continue Reading →
Copyright of the Estate of August Sander, 2003 courtesy Schirmer Mosel Verlag In 1929 August Sander (1876 – 1964), a German portrait photographer published his first book Antlitz der Zeit (Face of Our Time) by Kurt Wolff Verlag with an essay by the German writer Alfred Doblin. This famous book was re-issued by Schirmer Mosel... Continue Reading →
Copyright 2005, Candida Höfer courtesy Schrimer/Mosel Verlag I like libraries. I like the smell of books; old leather covers or the fresh ink recently laid on new sheets. I like to wonder along the library isles among the towering columns of books, getting lost physically and in thought. And I am a photobook collector with a... Continue Reading →
Copyright 2009 Zoe Strauss, courtesy AMMO Books There are photographic projects that become evident of when the photographer is just a visitor dropping in to take a photo-op, collect some photo-trophies and then soon back home for the evening to spend time with their spouse and kids. With Zoe Strauss's recent project America by Zoe Strauss published by AMMO Books I quickly perceive that... Continue Reading →
Photographs copyright of Donald Weber courtesy of Photolucida Donald Weber's Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl is his Photolucida 2006 Critical Mass book and a scary look at what could be our potential post-Nuclear civilization. It is also about a marginalized society and the reclamation of the land. Weber's photographic documentary project investigates the no-man's region surrounding Chernobyl (Ukraine) where 20 years ago in... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 