The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale · Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible – Maya Angelou I am captivated by a photobook’s cover in which it seems to offer two truths, especially when both appear correct. So it is for me with Michele Zousmer’s MIS[S]UNDERSTOOD, a photo-documentary that “explores... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian F. O’Neill · There has been a surge of image-text photobooks in the market in recent years. In some, the texts and images operate rather independently, while perhaps still holding onto some underlying issue. In others, the text is treated as an opportunity for a more traditional analytical “lens” on the subject... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • Amy Horowitz takes us for A Walk in the Park and magically transports the reader into the stories of those she’s photographing. Washington Square Park and the West Village in New York City are rich with diversity and young people discovering themselves and adulthood in today’s world. Horowitz brings us... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Photobooks today explore themes that photographers of previous generations never would have imagined. You name it, and some intrepid photographer is turning it into a photobook. There are books, for example, that deal with family relationships, memories of past times, emotional landscapes, and problematic real-life situations. Sunniva Hestenes’ A Tear... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · When he made the photographs published in his book The Waning Season, Oliver Gerhartz probably did not imagine that they would become an elegy for a brief period of relative calm between the fall of a dictatorship and a brutal civil war. Gerhartz was in Khartoum, Sudan, working as an... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • New York City, Manhattan, September 11, 2001. In just a few hours Manhattan went from the daily norm to horrendous, tragic chaos and terror with a rising spirit of unity and support. A writing journalist at the time, Holger Biermann was in the City, walking the streets with thousands of... Continue Reading →
Review by Rudy Vega · Lefteris Paraskevaidis’ Around the Line is an evocative photobook documenting the evolving landscapes along the Athens - Thessaloniki national highway and its surrounding areas. Spanning a decade of travel and observation, this body of work functions as both an aesthetic meditation and a sociopolitical inquiry into the transformation of Greece’s... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · When are photographs not really about what is depicted but about something else? It happens often in photobooks when editorial direction establishes intentionality and context that frame the viewing experience, and Hannah Modigh’s Searching for Sivagami is a great example. The book is simple and focused. The photos are of... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Yasuyuki Takagi photographs urban neglect and decay but also renewal in Brooklyn Lot Recordings. The book is a catalog of what he saw in empty lots in Brooklyn, New York between 1995 and 2005, and his photographs present the detritus of modern life accumulating in vacant spaces behind and between... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Photobooks are a great medium for telling stories, but also for re-creating emotional landscapes. Alex Blanco’s Meat, Fish, and Aubergine Caviar does both and also mixes in memories, cookbook recipes, and idealized fantasy. If this sounds like a lot it is because the book operates simultaneously on several levels, like... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 