Articles

‘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

The Phaidon 55 series, launched around 2000, is a collection of pocket-sized monographs dedicated to individual photographers. Each volume presents 55 images accompanied by brief commentary and an introductory essay. Designed to be affordable and portable, the series aims to provide accessible introductions to key photographers' work, encouraging collection like Penguin Classics in literature. The books feature uniform design but vary in image selection and commentary style, with contributions by curators, critics, and photographers. Though the original paperbacks were valued for their usability, a later hardback edition raised prices, making them less accessible. The series remains influential for visual education and photographic writing. Read Article

The Phaidon 55 series offers pocket-sized photographic books featuring 55 shots by renowned photographers, priced affordably at £4.95 each. The series includes works by the likes of Shomei Tomatsu, Boris Mikhailov, and W Eugene Smith, accompanied by detailed captions and insightful essays. The books emphasize the evocative power of black and white photography, as seen in Tomatsu's stunning ocean imagery. Mikhailov's works depict the bleak reality of the former Soviet Union, while Smith's portfolio showcases a blend of journalistic and artistic excellence. This collection represents excellent value and contributes significantly to photographic publishing. Read Article

Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph showcases the work of Deana Lawson, a photographer focused on black expressive culture and the African Diaspora. Over the past decade, Lawson has developed a distinct visual language through large-format portraiture and social documentary-style images, depicting black identities with deliberate, theatrical scenes rich in fine details and vibrant colors. The book features forty-five photographs and includes an extensive interview with filmmaker Arthur Jafa. Contributions include an introductory essay by Zadie Smith, exploring Lawson's themes and artistic influences. Read Article

The exhibition of Deana Lawson at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art features eight rooms filled with her evocative photographic portraits spanning over 20 years. Lawson’s work deeply explores themes of Black identity, family intimacy, and the complexities of personal and social history. The images invite viewers to create their own narratives, often juxtaposing freedom and captivity, reality and mythology. The show’s design, from red carpeting to strategically placed crystals, creates an immersive environment that isolates the art from the outside world, encouraging close engagement. The presence of music and video enhances the emotional impact in later galleries. Read Article