The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Although Brian O’Neill’s southern California subject, Beach Boulevard, extends from the San Gabriel mountains to the Pacific Ocean, his emphasis appears to circle around one of the end-points: the urban landscape of Huntington Beach, a costal community. His perspective is a combination of street photographer, with hints of photographic-documentary, overlaid with... Continue Reading →
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 →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Here’s a tip for photographers who are struggling to find something worth shooting: just look out the window. Catherine Canac-Marquis takes this idea to an extreme in the appropriately titled Every time I walked into my room, I took a picture through the window. Over the course of 17 days in November... Continue Reading →
Review by Douglas Stockdale • Lady Clementina Hawarden (1822 – 1865) was a 19th century British photographer who photographed her adolescent daughters, frequently incorporating the use of mirrors and other reflecting surfaces creating multi-faceted portraits and visual narratives exploring self-reflection and introspection. Interestingly little is known of her life, who remains a mystery and what is suspected... Continue Reading →
Review by Brian O’Neill • The Devil’s Pool is a roughly 15-foot-deep by 25-foot-wide basin of water tucked within Wissahickon Valley Park located in Northwest Philadelphia, USA. But, if you Google “Devil’s Pool,” the aforementioned pool does not appear. Instead, you will find “Devil’s Pool, Victoria Falls.” You will read that it is “a tourist attraction in... Continue Reading →
Review by Melanie Chapman • Now that new COVID infection rates are decreasing, “the world” seems eager to open up again after more than 700 days of lock down and rationing basic necessities such as food, medicine and even toilet paper. Millions of people have seen restrictions relaxed and have begun traveling again, for business and... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Toshio Shibata likes to blur boundaries. Between the natural and the human-made. Between the representational and the abstract. Between photography and drawing. Shibata, one of Japan's preeminent landscape photographers, has focused his attention since the early 1980s on the intersection of nature and infrastructure, finding art in scenes of bridges, dams,... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Connecting with the past is a challenge, particularly when the present is such a mess – viruses, warfare, economic worries, etc., etc. As I am writing this, a major new assault on yet another group of people is in progress: this time the victims are the Ukrainians. How many more... 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 Wayne Swanson • Many people see melancholy in the dying of the light, but French photographer Philippe Ciaparra sees utopia. At twilight he finds himself “in a chiaroscuro theater, immersed in the daydreams of my inner journey.” Ciaparra is a Paris-based fashion and portrait photographer, but in his personal work he focuses on long-exposure... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 