Coal mining is a very peculiar enterprise. The 19th and 20th Centuries committed untold heaves of labor to its extraction. It fuels communities, yet its extraction suggests a disemboweling of the land where these communities settle. The prospect of coal mining is one of capital and capitalism. The very human clay that mines these enterprises […]
Incarceration, one of our great social taboos. Out of sight and out of mind is enough for the majority of society, unaware that in the UK, some reoffending rates are over 50%, costing society £18bn a year. The current system is at the very least creaking, if not fundamentally flawed and failing those who, whilst […]
Equine surgery and medical observation; specialized labor and industrial production. In its study of the Clinica Equina Bagnarola, a renowned horse clinic outside of Bologna, Italy, Andrea Modica’s Theatrum Equorum (TIS books, 2022) touches on each of these subjects fluidly and with considerable grace, in a mode closer to aphorism than to essay. Modica’s images […]
Full Article with More Images on Patreon It is essential to understand the biography of Tomatsu to understand what the emotion of rage or anger may be prevalent in his work. As a pubescent teen during the atomic bombing of Japan and the subsequent end of the Second World War, Tomatsu recalls the occupation […]
Full Article on Patreon So, the dig at post-industrial decay has put a giant bee in my bonnet. But what should I expect about the unspoken class issues that revolve and permeate through and in photography these days? I mean, if you have a New York-London-based photographer stat in your bio and are in […]
Full Article on Patreon …Further images within images add to the sense of a lived space as Becher family photos from the 20s and 30s adorn mantels and countertops, with a finesse of an image, ala the Bechers, of a water town, sat, out of frame, lithely resting against a presumed wedding […]
There comes a point in our lives when the incessant cavorting, energy expulsion, and general themes of youth come to a crawling end. Associated with the recognition of these moments are a series of mid-life acknowledgments. First, if one takes up the standard biology-the coupling, work, and family routines, the dissipation of specific energies […]
Full Article on Patreon This is an incredibly complicated book. It is one that I have been chasing for a year or so since I first became aware of it. It has a cult-like status for many reasons, least of all are the photographs, which are also incredible. The story of Baitel amid a […]
Dave Heath – One Brief Moment Review by Simon Bray Within the opening pages of Dave Heath’s ‘One Brief Moment,’ there is a certain air of occasion. Gathered masses fill the middle of the street, suggesting that these are not singular moments but a crowd united by a collective sense of anticipation and […]
Full Article on Patreon …11:02 Nagasaki contains elements of documentary practice mixed with an emotional and highly subjective style of photography. In essence, the book is caught, like Kawada’s Chizu, between two schools of thought regarding photography. On the one hand, there is a legacy of photography that considers politics and a (at […]
“He capered toward Bill, and the mask was a thing on its own, behind which Jack hid, liberated from shame and self-consciousness.” William Golding, Lord of the Flies “In Huts, Temples, Castles, MACK returns with a new book from Ursula Schulz-Dornburg. As is the distinct emphasis on architecture and vernacular sensibility, all typological […]
Full Article on Patreon “In thinking over the melange of the photobook, its audiences, and their perceived dismissal or avoidance of other mediums, every once in a while, a book lands on my desk that has, at its base, some considerations for other media. In the case of Belgian artist Lars Duchateau’s excellent […]