photographs copyright Rafal Milach 2011 courtesy of Kehrer Books The seven short stories attempt to provide a collective insight into his subject's existence in this region of the Soviet Union, with a heavy dose of reality clashing with hope. Accompanying each narrative are quotes by his subject to broaden the visual context. I found the pathos to be unrelenting and that it darkly... Continue Reading →
Douglas Stockdale – Ciociaria
Review by Karen Jenkins • Douglas Stockdale spends a lot of time looking at and thoughtfully writing about books of contemporary photography as a fellow reviewer for this magazine and as founder of The PhotoBook blog among other projects. His own photography has now been collected in his first commercial book, Ciociaria from Rome's Punctum Editions. It... Continue Reading →
LensWork Magazine – #74
Copyright the various photographers 2008 courtesy of LensWork - While I was updating the photography magazine section of this blog and providing very brief overviews of various photographic magazines that I though had some aesthetic merit, I realized that there was an opportunity for a two-fer, to discuss the LensWork magazine while shamelessly promoting my own photographic... Continue Reading →
Simon Roberts – We English
Copyright Simon Roberts 2009, courtesy of Chris Boot Ltd & Simon Roberts When I first became aware of Simon Roberts photobook project that would eventually develop into We English, I was very intrigued by the concept, his past photographic work in Russia, and what he was attempting to investigate in his own homeland. And probably... Continue Reading →
Andrew Bush – Drive
Copyright Andrew Bush 2008 courtesy Yale University Press The concept of photographing those who co-exist with us on the crowded and packed Freeways, Highways and Expressways in the urban centers of the United States is intriguing and the subject of Andrew Bush’s photobook Drive. In particular, Bush is photographing his own locale area of Southern California,... Continue Reading →
Andrew Phelps – Not Niigata
Copyright Andrew Phelps, 2009 courtesy Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg For my liking, Andrew Phelps’s introduction, printed on the inside book cover, places this entire photobook into an insightful context, “ But what does it mean to photograph with the pretense of documentation? I find it is easy to get caught up in chasing an illusion of... Continue Reading →
Lewis Koch – Touchless Automatic Wonder
Copyright Lewis Koch 2009 courtesy Lewis Koch & Borderland Books The subtitle to Lewis Koch’s Touchless Automatic Wonder is “Found text photographs from the real world”. There is no doubt that Koch is attuned to the abundant text that we swim through on a daily basis, to notice those juxtapositions that naturally occur, or with... Continue Reading →
David Carol – All My Lies Are True
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Inside the window is a beautiful wedding dress, but this simple window is framed by a neutral toned cinderblock and wood wall with an exposed adjacent electrical box. The surrounding ground is a patchwork of grass and dirt, with a barren tree lurking on the edges of the fame. This... Continue Reading →
Amanda Marchand – 415-514
By Douglas Stockdale - At one point in her life, Amanda was living in two different cultural landscapes, San Francisco, California (telephone area code 415) while she was working on her MFA at San Francisco Art Institute and her home in Quebec, Canada (telephone area code 514). These are two very different geographical locations on... Continue Reading →
Candida Höfer – Libraries
Copyright 2005, Candida Höfer courtesy Schrimer/Mosel Verlag I like libraries. I like the smell of books; old leather covers or the fresh ink recently laid on new sheets. I like to wonder along the library isles among the towering columns of books, getting lost physically and in thought. And I am a photobook collector with a... Continue Reading →