Articles

During Melbourne's record-setting sixth COVID-19 lockdown, photographer Andrew Rovenko and his family turned to creative activities to cope with restrictions. Inspired by their daughter Mia's fascination with space, they created a homemade spacesuit, which transformed their limited daily outings into imaginative space missions. One photograph captures Mia quietly contemplating inside an old bus during a thunderstorm, revealing a rare moment of calm and depth. Rovenko’s project, originally informal and personal, gained unexpected acclaim and led to a self-published photobook titled The Rocketgirl Chronicles. Read Article

Chambre noir, Archive blanche is a photographic book created through the collaboration between the Photothèque of the Muséum de Toulouse and Éditions Païen, led by Lia Pradal. It features over 1,400 glass plates, prints, and negatives by Eugène Trutat, taken between 1860 and 1910. The collection offers a contemporary perspective on Trutat’s work, capturing the Pyrenean glaciers more than a century ago as they melted. The book metaphorically represents the glaciers and mountains disappearing over time, concluding with a prophetic quote from geographer Élisée Reclus on the eventual disappearance of these landscapes. Read Article

'The Banda Journal,' created by Muhammad Fadli and Fatris MF, was named one of the best photobooks of 2021 by TIME Magazine, ranking third on their list. The photobook documents the history and struggles of the Banda community in Indonesia, highlighting the colonial exploitation and violence experienced in the Banda Islands. Combining photography, illustrations, words, and research data gathered over three years, the book preserves and shares the community's stories. It aims to raise awareness of the islands' significance and beauty through captivating visuals and narrative. Read Article

The exhibition "Ferdinando Scianna: Journey Tale Memory" opened on March 22 at the Piano Nobile of Palazzo Reale in Milan. It presents over 200 black and white photographs spanning the entire career of Sicilian photographer Ferdinando Scianna, featuring a special section dedicated to his friend and writer Leonardo Sciascia. The display includes Scianna's early work on religious festivals in Sicily, his photojournalistic endeavors, portraits of cultural figures, and his ventures into fashion photography. The show offers an audio guide where Scianna shares personal stories and insights into his artistic journey. Read Article

Barbara Cole's new photography book, Between Worlds, will be released on June 28, 2023, by teNeues. The book spans over 45 years of her artistic career, showcasing her evolving hybrid style that blends multiple photographic processes such as Polaroid, underwater photography, and the wet collodion process. Cole, a self-taught photographer, embraces experimentation and intuitive creation while rejecting straightforward realism and digital cleanliness. Between Worlds offers a nonlinear, layered experience that reveals the photographer’s commitment to making timeless images that reflect her continuous artistic exploration. Read Article

Richard Learoyd’s portrait series Presences showcases life-size, highly detailed prints created using the camera obscura combined with modern techniques like strobe lighting and Ilfochrome printing. His process involves arduous multi-hour sessions where models must sit still under hot lights. Learoyd produces unique positive prints with no negatives, deciding the final image during the exposure and destroying any rejected prints. The portraits explore the tension between intimacy and distance, challenging the viewer’s ability to truly know another person through the surface of a photograph. The series was exhibited at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco from May to June 2011. Read Article

French photographer Thomas Jorion uses an analog 4×5 camera to capture the lasting beauty of abandoned palaces and villas, primarily in Italy. His large format photographs highlight the decay and grandeur of these forgotten structures, presenting them with careful composition and detail often reserved for more lively subjects. Jorion’s solo exhibition Veduta at Esther Woerdehoff Galerie in Paris showcases this evocative exploration of time and nature reclaiming man-made spaces, open through April 6, 2019. His work emphasizes the poetic intersection of memory, decay, and beauty in derelict architecture. Read Article

The article explores the pervasive system of racial segregation under Jim Crow laws in the American South, illustrating how legal decisions and local ordinances enforced “separate but equal” spaces. It details how African Americans faced segregation in transportation, public facilities, housing, and daily activities through signs, laws, and architectural designs that maintained racial separation and reinforced institutional racism. Personal accounts highlight the social realities of navigating these spaces, emphasizing the dangers and restrictions imposed on African Americans. The narrative also connects the rise of such segregation with urban growth and the eventual civil rights challenges sparked by figures like Rosa Parks. Read Article

The exhibition 'Gordon Parks' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, showcases groundbreaking photographs taken by Gordon Parks in Fort Scott, Kansas, during the 1940s. The images capture the realities of life under segregation. Parks, the first African American full-time photographer at LIFE magazine, returned to his hometown in 1950 to document the everyday lives of African American citizens around the time before the Civil Rights movement. His photo essay titled “Back to Fort Scott” was never published but offers a rare and visually rich perspective on segregation-era America. Read Article

In 1950, Gordon Parks, the only African-American photographer working for Life magazine, returned to his segregated hometown school in Fort Scott, Kansas, to photograph his classmates and document segregation. Despite the significance of the project, Life never published the photos or Parks’ accompanying text, leaving these powerful images hidden for more than 60 years. An exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston will finally showcase these never-before-seen photos, providing a poignant look at racial segregation and African-American life before the civil rights movement. Read Article

Jim Grey reflects on improving his documentary photography by studying Berenice Abbott's work, particularly her 1930s photographs of New York City taken during the Great Depression under the Works Progress Administration. Abbott's images demonstrate how context, contrasting elements, and angled compositions can convey a strong sense of place and environment. Grey highlights specific techniques such as backing up to include surrounding context, framing multiple planes, and seeing through objects to create more engaging and informative photographs. He aims to apply these lessons to better capture the essence of the places he visits. Read Article

New York in the Thirties, published by Dover Publications in 1973, is an unabridged reprint of Berenice Abbott’s 1939 classic Changing New York. Featuring 97 photographs, the book documents the architectural and social transformation of New York City during the Great Depression. Abbott used a large-format view camera to capture the contrast between old low-rise buildings and modern skyscrapers, employing a sharp, realistic photographic style called straight photography. The volume offers valuable historical context through captions by Elizabeth McCausland and serves as an important record of a rapidly changing cityscape. Read Article