There has rightfully been what I might consider an epidemic of navel-gazing in American photography over the last decade. It sounds awful to say it that way, and maybe to unburden the semantic load of the navel, I might consider it inward, or soul searching, if that is more palatable. When I mention this, it […]
Place de la République is a central meeting point in Paris. Several underground metro lines stop at its station, and its wide-open square is a gathering place for many people, particularly younger people. When you first enter the square, there is a flurry of activity, but it never feels overly crowded. Suppose you […]
With Dana’s work, one cannot help but be mesmerized by her ability to capture people in situ. Her career has been broadly defined by her portrait work, both commercially and for her own personal subjectivity. Whereas having a career built on poraiture no doubt inspires a healthy relationship with the craft of photography, there […]
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 […]
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 […]
For such impersonal architecture, the environments of airports are rife with sentiment and emotion. When I say that they are impersonal, like much of the Twentieth Century’s functional public meeting spaces, they are often streamlined and defined by their sameness. The function has to override form in such spaces, which disallows individuality. There […]
I’m still determining who needs to hear this, but Mark Steinmetz remains one of the most profound voices in the rising tide of what I suggest is a revisiting of humanism in photography. Given the clamor and tumult of the past years, it is not a surprise that work like Mark’s, which, at its base, […]
PHOTOBOOK YEAR-LONG COURSE MAY 2022 – MAY 2023 The Intent I have been enthralled with the photobook medium since the late 90s. I do not see the photobook as a simple vessel for photography. I see it as a medium that can be understood as the final message. The book suits me as a […]
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 […]
Anne Immelé’s Oublie Oublie is a book about a transitional time and place. Between 2019 and early 2020, the French artist surveyed municipal works and changes in the neighborhood of Le Nouveau Drouot in Mulhouse, France where she lives and teaches photography. The urban environment of her images suggests the 1950s’ and 60’s city planning […]
“Berlin is a peculiar and magnetic geography…There is no real heavy concentration of a “center” or “downtown” though there are clusters of busier topographies within the city. For this very reason, it is easy to pass through Berlin in a very solitary manner” Berlin is a peculiar and magnetic bit of geography. […]
“I had a calming moment and I started to nurture my love for cinema. So I guess for me to play the long game was to end up making cinema, starting by photography, then making music and so on. Cinema is the unification of all arts” BF: Michael Kominek-artist, publisher, gallerist, book seller-what […]