The Minox pocket camera was developed in 1936 by Walter Zapp to provide the public with a small compact camera that was easily portable and that was economically feasible for a budding amateur class of photographers to purchase. Its innovative design, compact, small, and easily hidden were later co-opted as something of a novel […]
I had the pleasure of talking to Alexis Fabry on the publication of the catalogue of Battered Latin America, the exhibition he co-curated earlier this year at the Fondation A Stichting in Brussels. The book compiles the work of twenty photographers, including lesser-known names (Jaime Villaseca, Agustín Martínez Castro) and many of the region’s luminaries (Paz […]
As per Donavan Smallwood’s admission in his new book Languor (Trespasser, 2021), I also wanted to be an archaeologist when I was a child. I spent at least a few summers basking in the glow of having seen the first two Indiana Jones films which had made an indelible impression upon my youthful, as […]
Images of intimacy, are often suggested, as a foregone conclusion, as images of love, closeness, and empathy. Intimacy is a term that is laced with positive and nurturing qualities and suggests a decoupling of the reality that forms its basis-namely the trials, as well as tribulations that are part of what makes a shared […]
I have been thinking about Jet Swan’s book Material for the past week. This is a fortunate sign. It marks it as one of those books that float across my desk that at first glance I feel some sympathy with, not total, but then it, or the images inside of it, burrow into my […]
I’m going to start this review in a slightly off way by suggesting that the subject matter, no matter how expertly handled in the beautifully produced self-published set of books proposed by Regina Anzenberger is not my cup of tea. This will be a failed review as I cannot find the words to speak […]
There isn’t much more that can be said regarding the importance of Friedlander’s work on the psyche of subsequent generations of photographic enthusiasts and artists alike. From his self-portraits to his Little Screens, Friedlander’s work is simultaneously charged with an inner and external pathos that presents both as a partial reflection of the artist’s psyche […]
I have just returned from Athens from our first Nearest Truth Workshop and have been considering at great length the duality of living and being in a city. Having lived a large portion of my life in a city, and have now removed myself and my family to the remoteness of the countryside, this trip, […]
It is perhaps unsurprising that humans cling to material relics that remind them, in their shallow wisdom, of former glories that they themselves may never have lived. Monuments, crumbling statues, cenotaphs, and national symbols are built in order to honor perceived historical moments that shutter the mind, present illusions of grandeur, and present failed […]
“It’s how I fill the time when nothing’s happening. Thinking too much, flirting with melancholy.” Tim Winton, Breath This land that surrounds us, this land that gives impregnable meaning to our terminal character and its capacity to acknowledge our decline never fails to remind us of our place on this spinning orb, […]
Every photographer parent that I know has what to the non-parenting world seems like a self-indulgent family album project. Every. one. of. them. Myself. included. Some have several. Making photographs of the family is part of the experience of getting through life. We use the camera to illustrate the mundane, the banal, and the exciting […]
“We often expect high-end production values in contemporary photobooks, but not every publication can afford some of the eccentricities that we have become accustomed to. In this sense, Tempo reminds us that our material expectations shouldn’t dismiss publications that use humble materials, often produced outside the usual centers of culture and power.”