The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Matt Schneider · In Mingas+Solidarity, photographer and anthropologist Tristan Partridge introduces us to the cultural tradition of minga in the ancestral community of San Isidro, Cotopaxi, Ecuador. The word “minga” is adapted from the Kichwa/Quechua word Mink’a or Minka, and as we learn from the book’s introduction, indicates “collective or communal work, based... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian Arnold · “Before long, my five senses and sixth sense began to function, and connections to various things and events acted in concert with the territory of the unconscious to produce the form called memory, and I began to trace the individual history that goes by the name, I.” Daido Moriyama -... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp · It takes time for what has been erased to resurface. Patrick Modiano, Dora Bruder Loli Kantor’s Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother has been obstinately staring at me from my desktop for some weeks now. At each encounter, I would fitfully and clumsily try to find a way into... Continue Reading →
Review by Henry Kallerud · Victor Cobo holds a strong personal connection with the eponymous Roy Orbison song “In Dreams”. He grew up listening to Orbison’s music with his father’s side of his family: coal miners, from Kentucky. Later in life, he watched and felt a deep resonance with the David Lynch film Blue Velvet... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian F. O’Neill · The concepts of both space and place are widely used in our vernacular. Both are also often used in photographic projects drawing on the documentary and landscape traditions of the field. However, while the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, the distinctions between the two are instructive when deployed analytically... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Photography is a medium, a tool. There are many ways to use it, and you do not have to be interested in pursuing photography’s traditional concerns to use it effectively. Charlotte Dumas’ photobook A Terra is a good example of this. She uses photographs to explore and present a topic... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Spending extended time somewhere, getting to know the locals, participating in the community and earning its trust is a tried-and-true approach to completing a photography project and turning it into a book. Nadia Sablin’s Years Like Water is a particularly successful example of this. Like similar books, hers connects us... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian F. O’Neill · On the one hand, many people define cities as the sum of their innovative minds, cultural milieu, and the enterprising spirit that seems to emanate from a place. Another line of insight into the nature of cities concerns the interpretation of their becoming. As historians and cultural geographers have... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian Arnold · Pres-tige /pre ste(d)ZH Noun Widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something based on perception of their achievements or qualities John Cutter, one of the principal characters in Christopher Nolan’s 2006 film The Prestige, tells us there are three basic acts composing any magic trick. The first is called... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian F. O’Neill North North South is Iranian American photographer Ayda Gragossian’s first major monograph, published in July of 2025 by London based GOST books. In it, Gragossian takes the viewer on a walk through the back alleys and side streets on a kind of tour of Los Angeles. While the 52 images... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 