Rodrigo Valenzuela has been producing incredible work for the past couple of years. I was lucky enough to get a copy of his last book, Journeyman, published by Mousse Publishing. It was my introduction to the Chilean-American’s work, and from that point, we managed to have an extensive conversation about his work for Nearest Truth. […]
With the publication of Sergio Purtell’s first book, Love’s Labor (Stanley/Barker, 2020), I found myself thinking that portraiture has a very uncanny way of reaching people to tap into their emotions and nerves, and all of this is done without knowing the person in the photograph. I have spent much of my mid-years avoiding portraiture […]
In 2019, at Fotofestiwal Łódź, I curated an exhibition with my vernacular collection of photography called American Revelations, which dealt with the concept of early twentieth-century America through the Second World War. It was a time in which the country was in flux, still finding its identity as immigrants from Europe and elsewhere made their […]
Sons of the Living (Trespasser 2024) is Bryan Schutmaat’s opus. It is the summation of a decade-plus of making exceptional photographs. I have been familiar with his work for some time, and seeing his work and career grow has been a pleasure. He is also a good dude and supportive of other artists. That should […]
Bryan Schutmaat is a photographer of the American West. His work is dedicated to sites along the interstate highway — forgotten mining towns, abandoned truck stops, weathered billboards, the garbage scattered across dirt roads. What he is attracted to is the region’s extremes: the harsh desert sun, its arid fields, trash heaps of tires, the […]
Gregory Halpern’s photobook King, Queen, Knave has been nineteen years in the making. The first images for the photobook were shot while Halpern was a student in the MFA program at California College of the Arts, where he studied under his mentor, the photographer Larry Sultan. At the time, Halpern felt lost and adrift, unsure […]
It has taken me a few weeks to elucidate my feelings in reviewing Gregory’s new book King, Queen, Knave, published by MACK this past month. I had previously seen some photographs in a workshop we facilitated in Athens with Gregory, Raymond Meeks, Adrianna Ault, and Tim Carpenter. I remember the images well, though I am […]
Paul Graham’s new books Ambergris/Verdigris, published this year by MACK, have several parallels worth exploring. First and foremost, it should be said that these titles feel like a return to form. While I am a fan of most of Graham’s bodies of works, the last books have been very inward and family-oriented. There is […]
Moises Saman is one of the most substantive and accomplished conflict photographers working today. A member of Magnum since 2014, he is best known for photographs he has been making for more than two decades working throughout the Middle East, during which time he covered the Iraq War and the Arab Spring. Many of the […]
Letting my unconscious, rather than my intellect, dictate the progression was important. For reasons I don’t entirely understand, being nude became part of the project early on. And working against that white wall near the two front windows in the so-called living room became a central point. —Melissa Shook I might’ve mistakenly read Sally Stein’s […]
“After people live awhile in a place to which they’ve laid waste, it gets to be easy to hate a great many things. Including themselves. And anything green that tries to rise again.” Robert Adams “There is another world and it is in this one.” Paul Éluard There have been few post-war American photographers, if […]
Matthew Genitempo is producing serious photobooks. Of the three books that I am fortunate to have on my shelves, his latest Dogbreath is one of his finest, but it is hard to create a hierarchy between it, Mother of Dogs, and Jasper. All three titles are excellent offerings, and it would benefit photobook makers […]