Photography Books
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Photo Book Review – Francesca Woodman’s Artist’s Books: A Profound Exploration of Narrative, Form, and Immortality
Photo Book Review – Francesca Woodman’s Artist’s Books: A Profound Exploration of Narrative, Form, and Immortality Francesca Woodman, a prodigious artistic luminary, unfurled her creative wings at a tender age, imprinting her singular style onto the photographic medium. Her oeuvre, celebrated for its innovation and distinctiveness, has journeyed through the realms of solo and group exhibitions, graced the pages of published volumes, and profoundly influenced the realm of photography. Tragically, her life was cut short in 1981, but her artistic legacy endures, captivating the imagination of generations that followed. Yet, until now, the fascinating tapestry of her artist’s books has remained largely unexplored. Pioneering Creativity: A Glimpse into Woodman’s…
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Life and Loss: Alessandra Sanguinetti’s On the Sixth Day as a Visual Elegy – Photo Book Review
Life and Loss: Alessandra Sanguinetti’s On the Sixth Day as a Visual Elegy – Photo Book Review Alessandra Sanguinetti’s On the Sixth Day, republished by Mack Books in 2023, is an evocative photobook exploring the lives of animals on a rural Argentine farm. Initially released in 2005 and celebrated for its unsentimental portrayal of life and death in the animal world, this expanded edition includes previously unseen images, enriching the powerful narrative. The title references the biblical creation story, in which animals and humans were brought into existence on the sixth day, grounding the work in a thematic exploration of creation, existence, and mortality. The result is a profoundly poetic…
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Photo Book Review: A Woman I Once Knew by Rosalind Fox Solomon
Photo Book Review: A Woman I Once Knew by Rosalind Fox Solomon Rosalind Fox Solomon’s A Woman I Once Knew is an evocative and deeply personal exploration of identity, memory, and the inevitable passage of time. Known for her extraordinary ability to capture the human condition through photography, Fox Solomon turns her lens inward in this book, crafting a narrative as intimate as it is universal. Through a fragmented, poetic structure, she invites the reader into her reflections on femininity, relationships, and the shifting perceptions of self that come with age and experience. This review will examine A Woman I Once Knew’s thematic depth, stylistic choices, and emotional resonance. While…
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Photo Book Review – SCUM Manifesto Reconstructed: Justine Kurland’s Feminist Journey of Reclamation
Photo Book Review – SCUM Manifesto Reconstructed: Justine Kurland’s Feminist Journey of Reclamation Justine Kurland’s “Scum Manifesto” emerges as a daring and uncompromising initiative, inspired by Valerie Solanas’ groundbreaking feminist tract, the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto. In her transformative volume, “SCUMB Manifesto,” Kurland embarks on a powerful journey of reclaiming history, dismantling the patriarchy, and subverting the male-dominated photographic canon. Through the medium of collage, Kurland disrupts the conventional narratives, questioning the imposition of straight white male perspectives in art and challenging the very essence of visual and social representation. This feminist review delves into the intricacies of Kurland’s work, exploring the potency of collage as a…
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Book Review – Steel Town by Stephen Shore – MACK Books
Photo Book Review – Steel Town by Stephen Shore – MACK Books The first time I met Stephen Shore was in 2019 at Photo London, but I have known and been influenced by his work for far longer. At Photo London (during the Press Event) Shore was interviewed, alongside my friend Mary McCartney (daughter of Paul) by William A Ewing. Shore’s bestseller by MackBooks entitled Steel Town combines a series of images that he took in 1977 when he travelled across New York state, Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio – the latter amid industrial decline and soon to be known as the Rust Belt.
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Photo Book Review – Pictures from Home by Larry Sultan
Photo Book Review – Pictures from Home by Larry Sultan The work was “about family history and the American dream, and how those two intersect,” Larry Sultan told The Times in 1989. “My father bought a one-way ticket from New York in 1949 and ended up in a dream house in Sherman Oaks. It was part of the cultural myth of the ‘50s about going west.” Larry Sultan was born in Brooklyn on 13 July 1946, but he primarily grew up in Los Angeles, California and graduated college with a degree in Political Science at UCLA and UCSB. He began photographing in 1968, for the Chicago Seed and the Good…
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Carmen Winant’s My Birth: A Raw and Transformative Portrait of Creation – Book Review
Carmen Winant’s My Birth: A Raw and Transformative Portrait of Creation – Book Review Carmen Winant’s My Birth is a striking and profoundly introspective photobook that delves into childbirth’s physical, emotional, and societal dimensions. This edition, published by Mack Books in 2024, expands on themes Winant has previously explored, blending personal history with collective experience. The book juxtaposes images of her mother’s births with found photographs of anonymous women during labour, creating a visual tapestry that celebrates birth as both an intimate and communal act. To purchase this book, please go here. All images – Courtesy of the artist and MACK. A Visual Journey Through Birth The book’s structure follows…
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Book Review – Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape by Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore’s body of work, Topographies: Aerial Surveys of the American Landscape, takes us on a mesmerizing visual journey through the diverse landscapes of Montana, North Carolina, New York, and beyond. Through a series of aerial photographs captured by drones from 2020 onwards, Shore presents an arresting portrayal of the delicate interplay between nature and human intervention in the American scenery. All images – Courtesy of the artist and MACK. Revisiting the original ambitions of the iconic 1975 exhibition ‘New Topographics,’ Shore employs a fresh aerial viewpoint to reexamine the movement’s core concerns: the objective depiction of the commonplace and the dynamic relationship between natural and man-made elements in the…
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Photo Book Review – Sleepers by Sophie Calle
It is a rare thing these days to hold a book that doesn’t simply tell a story but becomes one in your hands. Sophie Calle’s The Sleepers, now newly published in English by Siglio Press, is exactly such an object—a book that begs not only to be read but to be held. To press your palm against its quilted, pillowy cover is to be reminded that this is no ordinary text. It is soft, like the cheek of someone you love; it gives under your fingers, like a mattress that remembers the shape of your rest. The cover is padded, yes—physically—but emotionally, too, it cushions you for the quiet interior…
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Book Review – Minor White: Memorable Fancies
Book Review – Minor White: Memorable Fancies Minor White (1908–1976) was a pivotal figure in 20th-century American photography, renowned for his evocative images and profound writings on the philosophy of art and existence. The recent publication of Minor White: Memorable Fancies offers an unprecedented glimpse into his inner world, presenting his journals in their entirety for the first time. This 544-page volume, published by the Princeton University Art Museum on 4 March 2025, is a significant addition to the study of photographic art and theory. Memorable Fancies comprises the daybooks that White began in the early 1930s, drawing inspiration from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. These writings…
