Copyright John Duncan 2008 courtesy John Duncan and Photoworks/Belfast Exposed Photography/ Steidl In John Duncan’s latest book, Bonfires, we see that he is continuing to investigate the urban environment being built around his native region of Belfast in Northern Ireland. It is a region that is in flux, with acute memories of adversity, turmoil and... Continue Reading →
Photo-eye lists: Best PhotoBooks of 2009
Photo-eye News Blast: Welcome to the Best Photobooks of 2009. Continuing where photo-eye left off last year, they've expanded this long photo-eye tradition to include top 10 photobook lists from a group of prominent photographers, bookmakers, editors, publishers and critics (NOTE: This wonderful list includes yours truly, Douglas Stockdale this year!). Below you'll find a... Continue Reading →
Amanda Marchand – 415-514
By Douglas Stockdale - At one point in her life, Amanda was living in two different cultural landscapes, San Francisco, California (telephone area code 415) while she was working on her MFA at San Francisco Art Institute and her home in Quebec, Canada (telephone area code 514). These are two very different geographical locations on... Continue Reading →
Walter Iooss – Athlete
Copyright Walter Iooss 2008 courtesy Time Inc. Home Entertainment Walter Iooss started making his mark in sports photography in the 1960’s capturing the dynamic pulse and intensity of many of American’s iconic sports events; football, basketball, golf, boxing and baseball. As a staff photographer at Sports Illustrated, he has over 300 covers on this renown... Continue Reading →
Continuing discussion: Future of PhotoBooks
I just wanted to provide a very quick update on the ongoing crowd-sourcing discussion about the Future of PhotoBooks being moderated by Miki Johnson on the Resolve blog, in which I provided my thoughts about The Future of PhotoBooks. I have provided a follow-up on The PhotoBook for the Innovative PhotoBooks for 2009 that I reviewed. To date on the... Continue Reading →
Riitta Paivalainen – Imaginary Meetings
Copyright Riitta Paivalainen, 2009 courtesy Kehrer Verlag In Imaginary Meetings, the eight year retrospective of the young Finnish photographer Riitta Paivalainen, I have found some very delightful and thoughtful conceptual photographs. This book is an accumulation of a number of projects that Paivalainen has created, building on a similar theme utilizing similar subjects, advancing her ideas... Continue Reading →
Harry Cock – Omstreken
Copyright Harry Cock 2006, courtesy Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht Omstreken (Environs) is the title for the twenty-five year retrospective of Dutch photojournalist Harry Cock. The Dutch word is used to indicate the area and localities that are surrounding you, a fitting description of the territory for Cock’s focus. Similar to Gunnar Smoliansky who photographed his local Swedish surroundings for the... Continue Reading →
Stefan Heyne – The Noise
Photographs copyright of Stefan Heyne 2009, courtesy of Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg The title of Stefan Heyne’s recent photobook “The Noise; The Exposure of the Uncertain” is perplexing. The three accompanying essays that have translated from the original German to English only provide a little assistance. In an attempt to understand the accompanying photographs, I am digressing... Continue Reading →
Hisashi Shimizu – Portraits of Silence
Copyright Hisashi Shimizu 2009, courtesy photo-eye & Kodansha On the surface, the subjects of Hisashi Shimizu’s book Portraits of Silence are soldiers who perished during the Iraq conflict, indirect portraits developed from the perspective of the soldier’s parents. But Portraits of Silence is also about the desire to maintain the memory of a beloved, and... Continue Reading →
Christopher Thomas – New York Sleeps
Copyright Christopher Thomas 2009, courtesy of Prestel Verlag When I recently shared my thoughts about the future of photobooks when looking out another 10 years, I can not imagine at the moment an electronic version that would be capable of simulating the feel of a wonderful photobook lying in my hands. Christopher Thomas’s recent book... Continue Reading →