The encounter with Erwin Olaf’s Strange Beauty is a heavy dose of artistic embarrassment. I have to admit that I hadn’t truly grasped how big a name he is in the photographic world, which is a failing I feel keenly, especially when the work itself is so meticulously brilliant. But the immediate, impact of turning…
There are some books that demand to be read in a single, unbroken, visceral sitting, and then there are books like Dona Ann McAdams’s Black Box. This is a volume that felt less like a photobook and more like the discovery of someone’s deeply personal diary, a collection I had to keep putting down, not…
I have been waiting for what feels like an eternity to properly sit down with Ala Ebtekar’s Thirty-Six Views of the Moon. Family life, site projects, and the inescapable gravitational pull of daily chaos meant I had to keep putting it down, always promising myself I would return. Last night, however, I finally got the…
There are some photobooks that you read, and then there are others that read you. They arrive in your hands not as curated collections of beautiful prints, but as an unflinching challenge to your very soul, forcing you to confront the ethical and emotional cost of simply looking at the world today. Alfredo Jaar’s magnificent,…
Streuli is a photographer of such a rare brilliance, dismantling the polished, protective veneer we wear as travellers. We cling to the worn cliché that urban exploration is boundless, yet we betray ourselves by treading the familiar, safe paths, viewing the world from a certain elevated perch, and noting only the most superficial fragments.
Reading Carmen Winant’s book, The Last Safe Abortion, stirs a profound emotional reaction within me, it blows my mind how this conversation is still so prevalent, not only in America but right here at home in the UK. I see the utter idiocy of those still protesting outside hospitals and clinics across Scotland, and I…
I remember the first time I saw one of Elisa Miller’s photographs. An image of a woman sprawled on a thick red rug, wearing a green dress and a white blouse, smoking a cigarette with a slash of bright red lipstick. Her red hair seemed to burn against the carpet, and I felt a sudden,…