In November 2006, Mohammed ben Kalish Ezab and Omar ben Salaad pulled off one of the most stunning scoops in the annals of investigative journalism. Ben Kalish and Ben Salaad, photojournalists for Al-Zur (the Qatar-based news agency), followed the trail of Dr. Fasqiyta-Ul Junat, a leader of Al Qaeda's military wing. Their discovery, which would have been hard to believe if not for the photographic evidence, was that the military genius was in reality an actor and singer who had appeared in soap operas aired on Arab TV networks. He was even the public face of the Mecca Cola advertising campaign.

This is the claim that Joan Fontcuberta makes in his most audacious photo book to date, Deconstructing Osama (ACTAR, 2007).

Continue reading the review of "Deconstructing Osama" ...

The Guardian has redeemed itself today with two wonderful photo book stories.

Andrew Motion, the current Poet Laureate of England, is a fitting choice to review Magnum Magnum. Of it, he says "Look how stupid, cruel, greedy and unjust we are, but also look at how we make beauty in adversity, nobility in wretchedness, grace in mundanity." (Guardian).

Robert Macfarlane, in the company of Iain Sinclair, walks the perimeter of the site of the 2012 London Olympics. As he treks, the photo books of Sinclair's friend and fellow Hackney resident Stephen Gill are discussed. (Guardian).

In considering Gill's Archaeology in Reverse, to which Sinclair has penned the afterword, Macfarlane says the "apocalypse that haunts Gill's images is that of inundation. The cheap camera gives a distinctive blurriness to his photographs: as though one were looking through a rheumy eye - or as though the entire world were submarine. There are hints of flood throughout Archaeology in Reverse. Everywhere, things are afloat. A Coke can drifts through pea-green algae. A chimneyed structure rises from canal water like a brick U-boat. An open burger box bobs on the mucky swell. A red washing-up bowl sails along in the breeze. And, in one brilliant image, a young woman in a homemade coracle - lenticular, green-hulled - paddles herself across a stretch of canal."   

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Ouch

Creating a photo book is no trivial affair. I can only imagine the years of work that go into creating a volume as hefty as Paul Graham's A Shimmer of Possibility (Steidl, 2007). The pitching, editing, writing, printing, proofing, financing, publishing, distributing, and publicity. Oh, and shooting the photographs. The almost last step in the process, though, is someone with a giant ball of bubble wrap and roll of sticky tape pondering how to send two 6.5kg boxes through the post.

The above photo is the disappointing consequence of the six mile Royal Mail journey from Steidl London SE23 to London EC2, together with the rather creatively non-Amazonian packaging. Unfortunately a few of the 12 books in the box suffered so it'll be going back. Hopefully it won't be a common problem.

I was reminded of my experience buying a book in Charing Cross Road last week. The books may have become a lot bigger lately, but the bags to carry them have not. I was able to convince the guy behind the desk to tape a bunch of smaller bags together. I ended up looking like a walking sandwich board advertisement for the bookstore. Some of the other recent large books now come with their own carry handles. Helmut Newton's Sumo even comes with its own table like stand.

Remember the time books could be held in your lap, or read in bed?

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Martin Parr's favourite photography books of 2007:

• Hackney Flowers by Stephen Gill
• The Genius of Photography by Gerry Badger
• I’m a Real Photographer by Keith Arnatt
• The Mother of All Journeys by Dinu Li
• Welcome to Pyongyang by Charlie Crane
• A China Chronicle by Zeng Li
• A Shimmer of Possibility by Paul Graham
• In England by Don McCullin
• An American Index of The Hidden and Unfamiliar by Taryn Simon
• Nein, Onkel (No, Uncle) edited by Timothy Prus and Ed Jones
• Fashion Magazine by Alec Soth
• Magnum, Magnum by all Magnum Photo photographers

(source: Times Online)

All very good books sure to please most photography fans. I'm glad to see Zeng Li's A China Chronicle in the mix, an excellent book that hasn't received as much attention as it perhaps should have.

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In recent days I've posted about Hans Eijkelboom, subscription photo books, exhibition catalogues, and artists' books. This post combines all four by looking at some of Eijkelboom's older publications.

Hans Eijkelboom now has a hip, hit show at Aperture in New York and a clever photo book published in conjunction with it. Sudden exposure didn't happen overnight. Since 1995 he has self published 21 photo diaries and note books in a bewildering array of formats, edition sizes, quality, and content. They are fabulous.  

Continue reading the review of "Photo Notes, and more" ...

An Artist Book

I recently discussed exhibition catalogues, volumes which are characteristically impersonal. As frequently as not, they are a melange of different photographers work, cut and spliced to fit a curators theme. The antidote to their shortcomings is the artist's book.

Artists' books are distinguished by a personal touch that is mostly absent in exhibition catalogues. Here, the photographer is usually deeply involved and invested in all steps from conception to production and distribution, though the actual printing and binding may be undertaken by a third party. Small in both format and print run, they are often objects of art in themselves.

I see enough of these short run artists' books that I am going to start presenting them regularly on this website. First up is Specimina Commercii by the Icelandic photographer Ivar Brynjolfsson.

Continue reading the review of "Specimina Commercii" ...

The exhibition Eyes of An Island - Japanese Photography 1945-2007, showing at Michael Hoppen Gallery in London, ends this Saturday December 1st, 2007. It is a rare opportunity to see prints from the great post-WWII Japanese photographers Shomei Tomatsu, Hiroshi Hamaya, Daido Moriyama, Toshio Shibata, Eikoh Hosoe, Hiromi Tsuchida, Koichiro Kurita, Shigeichi Nagano, Takeyoshi Tanuma, and Shoji Ueda. Already missed it? Then you can't go past the photographic exhibition catalogue, published by Guiding Light and Studio Equis.

Continue reading "Japanese Photography Exhibition Catalogues" ...

In the 1930s Japan experienced an explosion of surrealist photography that foreshadowed much of the expressionist photography of ensuing decades. The war interrupted what might have been, but not before Kiyoshi Koishi published Early Summer Nerves (Shoka Shinkei), a masterpiece of early Japanese New Photography.

An amalgam of photography, poetry, and metal, Early Summer Nerves is one of the most intriguing volumes in photo book history.   

Continue reading the review of "Early Summer Nerves (Shoka Shinkei)" ...

Who is Prudence Hone? She pops up for one day each year to present "the best photography collections of the past year" in the Guardian newspaper's Books section. As in previous years, the photo book selection of 2007, published today, is light on monographs and heavy on fashion. 2007, 2006, 2005.

If your family and friends take the Guardian's advice, your Christmas stocking will be stuffed with "a lavish tome, Dior: 60 Years of Style, from Christian Dior to John Galliano, by Farid Chenoune and Laziz Hamani", "Tiffany Colored Gems by John Loring", and "the gigantic Ralph Lauren by Ralph Lauren".

Oh, the joy. The Guardian's coverage of photography books is as woeful as ever, I'm sorry to say.

Foto8 have kicked off their annual Christmas sale (ends December 13th) with some great bargains, including 40% off many Chris Boot books, and 50% off some old classics.

Jacqueline Hassink's The Power Book, which was released just this month and is sure to become collectible, is a steal at £18. I also recommend I’m A Real Photographer: Keith Arnatt Photographs 1974-2002 (£15) and the best deal of all Gilles Peress' The Silence (£10). (note: £1 is approximately $2)

There are plenty more bargains to be had, so head over there and take a look.

One of my aims is to use this website to introduce readers to photographers who are little known on the web but have created sterling photo books. The web presence of Xu Yong's Backdrops and Backdrops is almost non-existent. That is, once you discount the hundreds of spammy "Buy This Book" pages that result from searching for information. This is a shame as the book is a fantastic little volume that deserves comment.

The "souvenir photograph" of subject and family, or subject and friends, in front of a landmark location, is arguably the most commonly composed photo of all the millions of photographs taken each day. Why is it that while we all do it, and who amongst us can say we have not, when we see others do it back home we rib each other in a 'look at them' fashion and smirk at the wooden poses assumed. A fair generalisation would be to say that the practice is more widespread in asian cultures. The asian family in front of a monument shot is the epitome of the genre. In Backdrops and Backdrops, Xu Yong uses this cliche as a commentary on China today.  

Continue reading the review of "Backdrops and Backdrops" ...

In the headlines last week was news that Flickr had hit the two billionth photo mark. At this rate, there will be more images on Flickr that humans on earth sometime during 2009. The end is nigh. And what was the two billionth photograph? Serendipity has delivered the picture below. Surely this answers forever the infinite monkey conundrum.

The two billionth photograph on flickr.com

An auspicious title bestowed upon a mundane photograph. Turning the concept inside out, I wondered what auspicious photo has the mundane title of the most viewed photograph of all time.

Continue reading "The most seen photograph in history?" ...

Forget Harry Potter. The most popular book on the Londoner's bookshelf is probably the A-Z, which has sold tens of millions of copies.

Attempting to find her way to a party one day in 1936 Phyllis Pearsall became frustrated at the poor state of street maps. In true British style, she resolved her annoyance by walking, notebook in hand, along the 3,000 miles of 20,000 London streets. She created what would become an icon of London, the A-Z Map, today usually sold in the form of a small book atlas. The A-Z gains a new edition each year as it is reprinted to show the shifting boundaries of the city, providing shape to the sprawl of suburbia, the concrete growth along the Thames, and the tendency of families to clump along the M25 ring road. As much as it records the geography of London, the A-Z documents the changing psychology of its inhabitants.

Mark Power's 26 Different Endings takes place inside the confines of Pearsall's A-Z. Travelling to the outskirts of each of 26 pages in his atlas, he illuminates the horizon of the city. What he finds encircling London is a vast moat of disappointment and absent dreams.

Continue reading the review of "26 Different Endings" ...