Articles

Robert Adams is renowned for his black-and-white photographs documenting the American West over the past four decades. His work reveals the impact of human activity on wilderness and open spaces, often capturing desolate or sparsely populated scenes marked by human traces such as garbage, deforestation, and suburban sprawl. Despite the visible scars of development, Adams finds inherent beauty in the landscapes through his camera's lens. His series Turning Back (1999-2003) highlights deforestation in the West, which Adams views as a spiritual exhaustion beyond mere resource depletion. Adams explores the balance between environmental degradation and aesthetic recognition in his work. Read Article

Michael Kenna’s black-and-white photographs of the Huangshan Mountains in eastern China capture the dramatic interplay of light and cloud over this legendary landscape. Named after the Yellow Emperor, the range is famous for its mountains rising through seas of clouds. Kenna’s forty-six-image series, made over three years, highlights contrasts between luminous light beams and shadowed crevices, offering a meditative perspective on nature’s autonomy and grandeur. His work reveals intimate, less obvious views of this remote environment, evoking a sense of the heavenly and timeless. Read Article

Sebastião Salgado’s new book, Amazônia, showcases a 20-year photographic journey through the South American rainforest. Using his signature black and white style, Salgado captures stunning images of the Amazon’s landscapes and indigenous tribes, some of which have remained largely isolated. The book combines documentary photography with formal portraits and aerial views, supported by detailed text about the tribes' cultures and challenges. Salgado worked closely with the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI) to ensure respectful access and protection for the communities depicted. The publication aims to highlight the importance of conservation and the preservation of these indigenous peoples and their environment. Read Article

The Scent of a Dream is a 2015 photo book by Sebastiao Salgado, showcasing stunning black and white images centered around the theme of coffee. It follows the entire coffee production process from cultivation to shipment, featuring workers engaged in various stages. Salgado’s expert use of natural light and composition highlights the humanity and depth in each scene. The book’s concept, design, and editing were managed by his wife, Lelia Wanick Salgado, emphasizing a collaborative artistic effort. This work provides not only a visual narrative of coffee but also insight into global labor conditions. Read Article

‘The Scent of a Dream: Travels in the World of Coffee’ by Sebastião Salgado is a photographic book commissioned by Illycaffè, documenting the coffee production process from planting to early distribution across Africa, South America, India, Indonesia, and China. The book features consistent style and message, a matte linen cover, and high-quality printing, showing an improvement over Salgado's earlier work ‘Genesis’. The images present a lighter, more positive mood, reflecting the care in curation and the hopeful theme tied to coffee's cultural significance. Read Article

In 1986, Sebastião Salgado photographed the Serra Pelada gold mine in Brazil, capturing powerful black-and-white images of 50,000 manual laborers working amid harsh conditions. Unlike previous photographers who used color and brief visits, Salgado spent weeks living alongside the miners, producing an epic photo essay that highlighted the dignity and hardships of manual labor. His work challenged the dominance of color photography in magazines and revived interest in monochrome for serious storytelling. The Serra Pelada project became a landmark story, widely published and praised for its scale, composition, and humanistic portrayal of labor. Read Article

This article highlights eight influential photobooks that document authentic street style from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Unlike today's staged street style photos around fashion shows, these books showcase candid, real-life fashion moments captured in cities like New York, London, and Tokyo. Featuring photographers such as Garry Winogrand, Amy Arbus, and Shoichi Aoki, the collection captures diverse subcultures, everyday looks, and evolving stylistic expressions from punk scenes to Japanese street fashion. These tomes provide valuable historical insight into how individuals expressed their identity through clothing beyond the high-fashion spotlight. Read Article

Sealskin by Jeff Dworsky is a photographic monograph documenting life in a small fishing community on a remote Maine island during the 1970s and 1980s. Using Kodachrome film, Dworsky captures intimate moments of his family and community, weaving his images into a narrative inspired by a Celtic folktale about a selkie—a seal creature that transforms into a human. The story parallels Dworsky’s own life, exploring themes of love, change, and the passage of time in a world that no longer exists. Read Article

Sealskin is a photobook by Jeff Dworsky that presents an idyllic and nostalgic view of his formative years in Maine during the 1980s. The book blends family photographs and social documentary, capturing coastal village life, nature, and intimate portraits, all shot on Kodachrome 64 film. The warm, amber tones evoke a calming, timeless quality. Edited and published by Charcoal Press, Sealskin reflects themes of rural life, nature, and the passage of time amid social change and gentrification. Read Article

Emerald Drifters, Cig Harvey's fifth monograph, invites readers to rediscover wonder through color and beauty across 224 pages featuring 101 photographs and various creative texts. The book challenges the modern scientific dismissal of beauty by presenting it as a fundamental and irreducible aspect of reality, blending images and essays that explore pleasure, heartbreak, and the divine. Notable sequences in the book evoke deep emotional connections and reflections on life, death, and the sublime. Harvey's work serves as a call to embrace life's fleeting moments and the beauty inherent in existence. Read Article

Laura M. André selects The Louisiana Book by Rineke Dijkstra as the Book of the Week. Published in 2017 by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Koenig Books, this retrospective catalogue features comprehensive images from Dijkstra's notable series, including stills from her videos. The book includes insightful essays and reference texts, making it an essential resource for understanding this historically significant artist. André highlights the uniqueness of Dijkstra’s portraiture, which captures transitions and is supported by her unmatched technique and rigor developed over nearly three decades. Read Article

The Berlinische Galerie presents a comprehensive retrospective exhibition of Boris Mikhailov's photography, spanning from 1966 to 2011. Born in Ukraine in 1938, Mikhailov's work uniquely blends documentary and conceptual art, capturing the existential and threatening aspects of everyday life, especially during the social transformations following the Soviet Union's collapse. His series document poverty and despair as consequences of the repressive Soviet regime. The exhibition showcases his diverse techniques and styles, illustrating his ability to shift between humor, irony, and blunt realism, highlighting his significant contribution to contemporary photography. Read Article