The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Hans Hickerson · Julia Mejnertsen’s HUN explores nature, hunting, and the mother / daughter relationship. They are interconnected in the book because Mejnertsen’s mother is an avid hunter. Interestingly, Mejnertsen’s mother appears blind to the moral dilemma of killing animals, including a threatened species such as the African elephant. For her mother, discovering... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Time travel is possible via photos, at least time travel of the mental sort. Photographs from a specific time and place are still there, frozen where and when they were made. With a little imagination you can enter their world, especially when they are packaged as thoughtfully as those in... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · What happens when art tries to avoid becoming Art? That’s what I asked when thinking about Kevin Klipfel’s Sha La La, Man. I have my own ideas by way of an answer, but it is ultimately up to viewers to decide for themselves. The book views like a personal photo... 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 · There are many ways to make a photobook. One is to use photographs to construct meaning through carefully curated repetition and association. You introduce photographs to establish a theme or mood, you develop, and you introduce other themes and variations and build a narrative or story. Photographer Elise Corten’s Warmer... 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 →
Review by Brian Arnold · Imagine, if you will, a couple stripped down to their underwear, together leaning against a tree along a lakeside beach in Cheryomushki, Siberia. It’s hard to determine the variety of tree but it bends like it was designed to cradle the woman. The couple looks a little intoxicated, giving the... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · You can’t thumb through some photobooks. You have to look at them front to back and read the texts, otherwise they don’t work. Jordan Baumgarten’s Family Tree Removal is like that. If you don’t read the text, you don’t understand what the pictures and the book are really doing. I... Continue Reading →
Review by Hans Hickerson · Wow. There is a lot to like about Kevin Cooley’s The Wizard of Awe. A happy marriage of book design, storytelling, and photography, it elevates the photobook conversation to a level higher than anything I have seen in a long time. For starters the cover is spectacular. It shows falling... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 