The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Gerhard Clausing • As you start viewing João Linneu’s JJ VFF VV, you quickly get the idea that joy and pain go hand in hand and that a good portion of stamina pays off. The parents waited ten years to get the OK and participation of their son Valentín for this impressive journey... Continue Reading →
Review by Henry Kallerud · The opening photograph of “April” peers down onto an old house bounded by thick walls of shrubbery. Rissman populates this secluded garden with intimate portraits of people at varying stages of life that appear in non-chronological sequence. They engage their reader in recognizing faces across stages of childhood, adolescence, and... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook, To Love, Fear and Consume by Kostis Argyriadis, presents a host of challenges to the viewer. First and foremost, what do the three verbs in the title suggest? Our lives are certainly full of challenges, and in our present time we feel particularly vulnerable and are anticipating many... Continue Reading →
Review by Olga Bubich · Addressing traumatic or otherwise challenging pasts and processing childhood trauma have long been among the most common subjects in photography, and photobooks are no exception. Every year, numerous projects are created, sharing with distant readers stories of close proximity: those of complicated – or non-existent – relationships with fathers, those... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • How do you show moods and emotions in your photographs? How are a photographer’s feelings transmitted? And what about the people being photographed, and what do places and environments signal to us? Furthermore, what is the nature of the relationship between the photographer and the model? Such are the issues... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Disarmingly direct and unassuming, Tom Lyon and Pauline Vanden Neste’s On est venus ici pour la vue presents people and places in the Aurore neighborhood of Brussels, Belgium. Built in the 1960s, the neighborhood comprises seven high-rise apartment blocks set among green spaces along a canal. Like other engineered housing... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • How well do we know our extended family? How would we connect with our family’s history? What was important to them; their hopes and dreams? What can we truly understand about them if they are no longer able to provide the answers to our many questions? If even a little... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian O’Neill · Alleghania: A Central Appalachian Folklore Anthology is Michael O. Snyder’s first major monograph, published in 2025 by The Bitter Southerner (press based in Athens, Georgia). The book is a culmination of a larger 13-year effort called “The Mountain Folk Project,” which began as a collaboration between Snyder and folklorist Dr.... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Rich-Joseph Facun’s 1804 examines Athens, Ohio, an Appalachian town whose economic and cultural life is closely tied to Ohio University. Rather than constructing a conventional documentary narrative, Facun structures the book through a carefully paced sequence of portraits, architectural observations, and quiet still-life fragments. As the images accumulate, the photographs... Continue Reading →
Review by Lee Halvorsen • Paolinelli’s powerful images immerse us in the artistry, mechanics, family, faith and community of Albuquerque’s Lowriders. The images are intense, a brilliant mixture of color and black and white bringing each page alive while blending perfectly into a single, heartfelt story. Many of the images are captioned with names and places... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 