Review by Brian O’Neill • There is a QR code at the end of several additional texts that come inserted with this book that takes you into the Amazon rainforest, roughly 70% of which is within the territorial boundaries of the nation-state we call Brazil. Those sounds are at once familiar to me – the buzzing activity... Continue Reading →
Bob Newman – Shadows of Emmett Till
Review by Wayne Swanson • In 1955, a 14-year-old Black youth from Chicago, visiting relatives in the South, walked into Bryant’s Grocery Store in rural Money, Mississippi. Emmett Till wasn’t inside long, but he is said to have whistled at a white woman behind the counter. A few days later his body — beaten, shot, and... Continue Reading →
Pradip Malde – From Where Loss Comes
Reviewed by Madhu Joseph-John • This is what you might first see when you have Pradip Malde’s photo book in your hand: women, young and old, some with head covers, some with razor blade in hand, others grinding a clay like mass with stones, girls with their legs splayed and being held down by women, acacia... Continue Reading →
Makeda Best, Editor – Devour the Land
Review by Douglas Stockdale • While we at PhotoBook Journal tend to defer from broad thematic photobooks with a multitude of contributors, and in general the illustrated catalogs for exhibitions usually have little design and layout merit. I take exception with the recent exhibition publication in conjunction with Harvard Art Museums being very worth investigating. The exhibition and... Continue Reading →
Allan Sekula – Fish Story
Review by Brian F. O’Neill • Fish Story, the last major project/publication by Southern California based photographer, filmmaker, critic, teacher, and theorist Allan Sekula was originally released coincident with a touring exhibition that began in Rotterdam, Netherlands in 1995 and concluded in Kassel, Germany in 2002. In June of 2018, it was re-released by London headquartered... Continue Reading →
Scot Sothern – Family Tree
Review by Gerhard Clausing • When Scot Sothern was a young man, he became, by his own description, an ‘itinerant photographer’ who, having escaped from the formal studio work edicts of his father’s practice, decided to mix with and get to know the folks on the street in the 1970s, especially since at that time... Continue Reading →
Rita Leistner – Forest For The Trees
Review by Douglas Stockdale • I am writing and publishing this book review today on Earth Day, which I believe is a fitting subject. Interestingly, this book is not directly about climate change, per se, but speaks indirectly to what is required to support renewable natural resources, such as our forests, in this case, the expansive... Continue Reading →
Alan Gignoux – Mountain Tops to Moonscapes
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Coal mining in American is predominately in a region known as Appalachia, a divisive term applied to parts of Eastern Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia which can extend into parts of Ohio and Georgia. At one time, coal mining required deep tunneling to access the underground deposits, which since the... Continue Reading →
Kirk Crippens – So Long
Review by Gerhard Clausing • When the title of a book has a double meaning, I am delighted from the start. “So long” can mean saying goodbye, particularly to an unpleasant time period, and it can also mean that whatever is referred to has been going on for a long while. Both meanings certainly fit... Continue Reading →
Sonia Lenzi – Take Me to Live with You
Review by Gerhard Clausing • What we find missing in our childhood can sometimes be filled in a bit later in our lives in various ways. So it was with Sonia Lenzi, whose father had not been as accessible in her earlier years as she had wished; in recent years she gained personal access to... Continue Reading →