Xiaofu Wang – The Tower Supporting Texts

The Sight of It, Translated as Home Maša Seničić I wished to begin with, “when I saw it for the first time,” but I don’t know if I even have a recollection of looking at the building with intent before, if I had ever paid particular attention to its monumental nature, to its allure, or its […]

Bryan Schutmaat – Sons of the Living | Perspective II

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 […]

The Images of Luis Barragán

  I know very little about architecture. I am aware of certain Starchitects, of which Mexican architect Luis Barragán could be considered part of the milieu. A starchitect is one of the high-profile architects who became a household name. A list of starchitects could include, but is not limited to, Zaha Hadid, Tadao Ando, Frank […]

Martin Essl – Le Bateau Ivre

  With the recent emphasis on street photography found in volumes such as Matt Stuart’s Think Like a Street Photographer (Laurence King Publishing, 2021) and Reclaim the Street: Street Photography’s Moment, Matt Stuart with Stephen McLaren (Thames & Hudson, 2023), there seems to be a renewed awakening to the genre. If the countless YouTube videos about […]

Gregory Halpern – King, Queen, Knave | Perspective 1

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 […]

Massimo Leardini – Nordmarka

  Forest photography is a challenging art. I mention this regarding the photobook format, as the most significant complication of sequencing a book from a photographic forest yield is the difficulty of repetition. The question is, “How many photographs of trees can I look at without losing interest?” and “How much minute variation of a […]

Paul Graham – Ambergris Verdigris

  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 […]

Claudine Doury – Solstice

  As an American living in Europe, I have never gotten my head around the vestigial tail of pagan rituals that still occasionally surface here. They do not happen often, but I am continuously bemused when they do. They seem to function on either fire or water. During the opening season, which includes springtime fertility […]

Melissa Shook – Self-Portraits 1972-1973

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 […]

Matthew Genitempo – Dogbreath

  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 […]

Michael Ashkin – There Will be Two of You

The discourse surrounding this book is less bleak than the images themselves. Being a fan of Michael Ashkin’s work, I find this book to be his bleakest, yet when I read his words about the meaning of the book, I do not get the impression that it is necessarily its intention. First, we will start […]

Mark Steinmetz – ATL

    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 […]