Discover and share the best in contemporary photography
via LensCulture: http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2009/12/beauty-of-photobooks.html
For the second installment of Lens Culture’s new video interview series, “Conversations with Photographers”, I spoke at length with British photographer Simon Roberts about his work, and in particular about his two remarkable photobooks, Motherland and We English.
Sean O’Hagan picks his favourite photography books– from reissues of classic editions to a stunning collection of mobile-phone snaps
via the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/dec/28/photography-books-2009
From reissues of classic editions to an eye-opening collection of mobile-phone snaps, photography books in 2009 captured a medium in flux. Sean O’Hagan picks his favourites
Joe Sacco’s account of mass killings of Palestinians in 1956 impressively combines graphic artistry and investigative reporting.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/books/review/Cockburn-t.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Joe Sacco will find readers for “Footnotes in Gaza” far into the future because of the unique format and style of his comic-book narrative. He stands alone as a reporter-cartoonist because his ability to tell a story through his art is combined with investigative reporting of the highest quality.
Since FlakPhoto’s Andy Adams and I put out our call for posts on the Future of Photobooks a few weeks ago, more than 40 bloggers have shared their insights. You can find them all in our original post, plus lots of additional comments, and two new posts, about DIY book printers and the Future of Photobooks Twitter chat.
Link: 12 Hot Thoughts on the Future of Photobooks | RESOLVE — the liveBooks photo blog
You and Me and the Art of Give and Take by Allen Ruppersberg (Santa Monica Museum of Art) Holy information overload. One of the coolest exhibition catalogues I’ve ever seen. Greater Atlanta by Mark…
via LITTLE BROWN MUSHROOM BLOG: http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/2009/12/21/alec-soth’s-top-10-photobooks-of-2009/
On the surface, the subjects of Hisashi Shimizu’s book Portraits of Silence are soldiers who perished during the Iraq conflict, indirect portraits developed from the perspective of the soldier’s parents. But Portraits of Silence is also about the desire to maintain the memory of a beloved, and the fight to keep a tangible presence of who they were while dealing with the grief of their loss.
Prudence Hone’s roundup of photography books
via the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/12/photography-books-christmas-roundup-review
Massimo Vitali comments in Photo-wisdom: Master Photographers on Their Art edited by Lewis Blackwell (Chronicle, £35): “The fact that everybody is taking pictures today is interesting and not a problem for me. People can take their pictures, but when they see one of mine they realise it is different to theirs – and they are not going to take a picture like it easily.” This is an outstanding collection, with illuminating commentaries by the photographers, who range from grand old men of photojournalism such as Elliott Erwitt to celebrity-snappers Platon and David LaChapelle.
The book, “China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa,” documents the more than 500,000 people from China who have immigrated to Africa.
via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/showcase-91/
As many as 500,000 Chinese have immigrated to Africa, lured by its oil, copper, uranium, wood and other natural resources. Many have thrived, creating large conglomerates. To serve them, other entrepreneurs have opened palatial restaurants. Or karaoke halls. The infusion of a distinctly different culture into African society — again — is turning out to be a critical chapter in the continent’s post-colonial history.
This is a big story. And it was the toughest story that the photographer Paolo Woods has ever pursued.
I do think, however, that over the past few years the quality aspect of photo books has also been taken an extreme, which sometimes makes it seem as if photo books are some sort of fetish. If I had the choice between Alec Soth’s newpaper and a Karl Lagerfeld book printed by Steidl, it’s obvious I’d pick Alec’s newspaper
Andy Adams of Flak Photo contacted me a couple of days ago to participate in a discussion about the future of photobooks. Seems that this discussion is a spin off of a brief article posted by Joerg…
via PhotoBook Journal: http://thephotobook.wordpress.com/2009/12/10/future-of-photobooks/
First, what is the purpose of a photobook and how might that change in 10 years? For the books that I review on this site, the photobooks are another means of extending the reach of a cohesive photographic project, body of work or series of photographs. A published book can reach out beyond the walls of a gallery or studio, city, state or country to a much broader and wider audience. A photobook can extend the life of a body of work almost indefinitely, well beyond a large one-time exhibition, even beyond the life of the photographer, thus creates a sense of immortality.
It’s that time of the year again, so without further ado, these are the photo books that impressed me the most this past year. I’m listing them in no particular order, with the exception of the very first one: jpegs by Thomas Ruff. Cutting-edge work, challenging the way we think about photographs, presented beautifully in a large (but not too large) book, maybe in the best possible way (since I don’t think the work gains anything from blowing it up even larger and hanging it in a gallery or museum).
Sean O’Hagan applauds a meticulous biography of the photographer Dorothea Lange who will forever be defined by her images of the Great Depression
via the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/dec/06/dorothea-lange-biography-review
Sean O’Hagan applauds a meticulous biography of Dorothea Lange who will forever be defined by her images of the Great Depression
A group of dandies gussied up in tailored tweeds and bowler hats have transformed their Brazzaville suburb into Congo’s most unlikely style capital
via the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/nov/30/daniele-tamagni-gentlemen-of-bacongo?picture=356236609
A small suburb of Brazzaville in Congo has become an unlikely style capital, thanks to its dedicated followers of foppish fashion. Dressed to the nines in bowler hats and tailored suits, a group of cigar-wielding ‘sapeurs’ have been strutting their stuff through the shanty town – and on to the pages of a glossy new book by Italian photographer Daniele Tamagni.
Copyright Arnoud Bakker, 2009, courtesy Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht To be in love, or perhaps in lust, is to experience a kind of narcosis and paralysis, with an inability to focus, while the…
via PhotoBook Journal: http://thephotobook.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/arnoud-bakker-atropa-bella-donna/
The subject of Bakker’s book recently published by Noorderlicht, both directly and indirectly, is the portrait of women, attempting to reveal their inner natural beauty. The photographer also attempts to not betray them in the process, revealing a complex interrelationship of photographer and subject. Implied in Schoonhaven’s essay, Bakker is attempting to “create golden girls on paper… and that girls love cameras and they want to be seen…potentially by as many people as possible….and a woman who is prepared to be recorded, presents herself”.
Spending time with Duane Michals recent book, 50, was essentially re-experiencing much of my own photographic life, having come of photographic age with his Somnambulistic period. His fascination with dreams, dreamlike states and dream-walking precedes our current interest with making connections to memories. He is whimsical, elusive, sensitive, cerebral, witty, caustic, introspective, challenging and seemly always on the move, pushing boundaries along a zigzag course of his own making.
A love of Iran underlies a scholar’s memoir of surreal interrogation and solitary confinement in Tehran.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/books/review/Secor-t.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
In 2007, Haleh Esfandiari, the Iranian-American director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, told Iranian intelligence everything she knew. She was interrogated for almost eight months, nearly four of them inside Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. During that time, she explained the institutional structure of the Wilson Center, identified its board members and described her work organizing conferences. She translated reams of material from the center’s Web site into Farsi. But it was a dialogue of the deaf.
Matt Logue says: I just completed a self-published book depicting an uninhabited Los Angeles, and it got an honorable mention in the photography.book.now competition at blurb.com! The photos were …
via Boing Boing: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/20/matt-logues-empty-lo.html
The first image in Shelley Calton’s Hard Knocks, is a wonderful set-up for the brief, wild ride into the kinetic world of women’s roller derby that is to come. Titled “Agent Belligerent,” the opening portrait is of a woman who looks set for combat – and she is.
Accompanying this wry volume’s many accomplishments, Reiner Riedler deserves credit for reminding us that the United States does not monopolize the global marketplace for vicarious experiences available at cost. Yes, Orlando and Las Vegas hold places of honor in this collection. But Riedler, identified in the fall 2009 issue of PDNedu as “one to watch,” also reveals examples of Truman Show-quality artifice in such destinations as Shenzhen (China), Antalya (Turkey), and Trautmannsdorf (in Riedler’s native Austria).