The Contemporary Photobook Magazine
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 →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • All of us who have roots or interests in more than one culture (maybe that’s even most of us) can benefit greatly from the many insights Rohina Hoffman has incorporated in this new photobook. As a member of US society with roots in India, as one who has advanced to... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • Collecting can easily be very intense, perhaps more so than other pursuits. But then other kinds of activities including photography have been known to become highly ritualized as well. Need I remind you of the meticulous pursuits of water towers in order to present them in tomes of typologies, or... Continue Reading →
Review by Steve Harp · Lynchian: noted for juxtaposing surreal or sinister elements with mundane, everyday environments, and for using compelling visual images to emphasize a dreamlike quality of mystery or menace. - Oxford English Dictionary Lynchian is a description that immediately came to mind on my first viewing of Jon Horvath’s 2022 monograph, This is Bliss. It may be because... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Think back to your childhood, and there likely is a special place in your memory. A place of play, of adventure, of wonder, of self-discovery, and perhaps even of danger. For photographic artist C Fodoreanu, Lake Sacalaia was such a place. The deepest fresh-water lake in Transylvania, Lake Sacalaia is steeped in... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook presents the coming-of-age process of two people, a young woman and a young man, each in a different world. The former is presented as a series of photographs, while the latter is a short story in French, bound into the middle of the book. The photographer Antoine Seiter... Continue Reading →
Review by Wayne Swanson • Ben Brody understands the chaos, absurdity, and surrealism of war. He was a combat photographer covering the United States’ involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, which resulted in his acclaimed photobook Attention Servicemember (reviewed here). His new book is an epilogue to that one, and a fitting way to sum up United States’ ill begotten... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • When we are trying to visualize ancient times or the future, we do not have access to pictures taken with cameras. At best, we have a few sculptures, drawings, and paintings dealing with the past, and nothing at all when it comes to showing us what we imagine might come... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • At times some of us feel a certain nostalgia and want to go back to our youth. We long to be boys or girls again, thinking that things were simpler in our youth. We imagine that life was more innocent and more harmonious than what we now face as adults.... Continue Reading →
Review by Gerhard Clausing • This photobook is quite extraordinary – it took me a number of months to figure out what to say about it that would go beyond the obvious. Perhaps you know the old “September Song” with the line, “Oh, it’s a long, long time from May to December…” (Kurt Weill and... Continue Reading →
PhotoBook Journal 