The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Wayne Swanson • The hills and hollers along the Appalachian Mountains running down the eastern United States are steeped in folklore and folkways. In From Yonder Wooded Hill, photographer Riley Goodman spins a narrative tale from his experiences there and the stories he heard growing. Drawing from his own photos, archival images, short passages of text and poetry,... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • What is it that constitutes family? Is it a matter of love, or bloodline alone? Is family determined by time spent together, common interests, shared experience? Is family a matter of choosing whom among billions of people on the planet we trust and look out for and want to be with?... Continue Reading →
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 →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • I may not be a relationship expert, but I highly suspect that stating the reason for another person to stay in a relationship is that otherwise if they left all of the plants would die may not be the most enticing of rationales. The book’s title appears to be a retrospective... Continue Reading →
Review by Kristin Dittrich • The greatest challenge for parents-to-be in starting their own family is to switch back and forth between a wide variety of roles and to combine them harmoniously. For the man, this means that on the one hand he is expected to be a reliable partner, the responsible “head of the... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • This book is part retrospective with an autobiography about the early phase of Neil Folberg’s long photographic career, and part portfolio for early unpublished body of work. As an interesting combination of biography and portfolio, it is front-loaded with his personal reflections on his career change to photography while studying at... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Phony patriotism. Vilifying the opposition. Demonizing outsiders. Sound familiar? The days of Making America Great Again may be over, at least for now, but the problem is international. Perhaps nowhere is the rise of nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism more of an issue than in Hungary under the regime of Viktor Orbán.... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Who doesn’t love the smell of sweat, stale beer, and vomit? Who doesn’t fondly remember the danger of getting your eye poked out by the spikey hair of an amped up punk thrashing around in a mosh pit? Not you? Well then move right along Granny; this aint your book.... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • This book is about an enduring love story between two individuals, Blieke and Nicole, with a few twists. As they tell it, they met at a mental institution, as we later learn, Nicole has severe anxiety attacks, while we surmise that Blieke met Nicole while he was visiting his lover... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • This is one disorienting book. It deals with serious social issues — the effects of environmental pollution, institutional racism, the rise and fall of the industrial economy, and more. Yet the photos sure are beautiful. The painterly effects invite comparisons with a who’s who of modern artists. That’s a lot... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 