Kilimanjaro Magazine

- I met kilimanjaro magazine editor Olu Michael Odukoya by chance when he happened to be staying at the hotel that I work at while he was in New York about a month ago. We got to talking about art and photography and his amazing magazine. When I got to work the next day he had already checked out but left me a copy of one of the issues of the magazine. When I got home I was totally blown away, first off it is absolutely huge, I’ve never seen anything like it, the design is insane, it seems like the thing never stops folding out. I couldn’t recommend it enough. If you are in London before February 27th be sure to see the exhibit that Olu just curated called Kilimanjaro Magazine Edits: art, love and everyday life at 20 Hoxton Square Projects featuring the work of Alex Hoda, Michael Samuels, Henry Roy, JH Engstrom, Milton Marques, Robi Rodriguez, Lukas Wassmann and Claudia Stockli.

Some spreads:

Ryan McGinley – 2010 Winter Olympics

© Ryan McGinley
- Ryan McGinley recently shot a series of photos of American Winter Olympic athletes for The New York Times, see the whole slideshow here.

A Few Shows Not To Miss In NY

Robert Adams Summer Nights, Walking @ Matthew Marks Gallery
- I finally got a copy of the new pressing of Summer Nights, Walking and it is one of my favorite books, can’t wait to get a chance to see the exhibit.

Timothy Briner Boonville @ Daniel Cooney Fine Art
- Tim Briner’s show is absolutely beautiful, he put a ton of work into it and it paid off. Vince Aletti said it best “an exhibition that begs to be expanded into a book”, glad I have one of the twenty copies that Tim printed before the show!

Jacob Aue Sobol I, Toyko and Sabine @ Yossi Milo Gallery
- Finally getting to see Jacob Aue Sobol’s work in person was amazing. His prints are perfection and the installation in the gallery makes a very smooth transition between the two very different bodies of work.

Sam Falls Nothing Is Revealed @ Higher Pictures

- Haven’t got a chance to see the Sam Falls exhibit yet but it is next on my list. His book Color Dyling Light is one of my recent favorites and I’m sure the exhibition is interesting to say the least. Also be sure to check out the collaborative show he recently did with Lucas Blalock on the Humble Arts site.

Lydia Panas The Mark of Abel @ Foley Gallery
- I first saw Lydia Panas’ work when she was one of the winners of the Conscientious Portfolio Competition. Her portraiture is quite beautiful and I’m very excited to see the show.

Back, In The New Year

- Got burnt out on the blog for a while and thought I might hang it up in the new year but have decided to get back to it, theres just too many things exciting me right now. In the last month I’ve seen some really great shows and books, as well as some new work that I can’t wait to post about. It’s great to report that Alec Soth is back to blogging with the Little Brown Mushroom team, it’s already my new favorite blog. Another interesting new blog is The Independent Photo Book run by Joerg and Hester from Mrs Deane which announces independently published photography books and zines and where to find them, its a really great resource to find small run artists books that are usually hard to track down. Be sure to check both of those out. Glad to see people are still checking the blog everyday so heres to new content!

Top Photo Books ‘09

- Another great year in photography books. Here are my favorites:

1.) Henry Roy – Spirit (Gottlund Verlag)

- Henry Roy’s Spirit was my biggest surprise of the year. I had never even heard of him before Gottlund Verlag announced their fall releases and when I got the book in the mail I was absolutely blown away. Page by page it is just one beautiful photo after another and then ends with six pieces of Roy’s wonderful writing. This is by far my favorite Gottlund Verlag release and I think the nicest looking book they have put out so far.

2.) Richard Renaldi – Fall River Boys (Charles Lane Press)

- Fall River Boys was the first release from Richard Renaldi’s new publishing company Charles Lane Press that he founded with his partner Seth Boyd. This book lived up to the all hype it was receiving upon its release. Of course Richard’s photographs are as beautiful as ever but the book is truly breathtaking, the paper, the printing, etc. and the care that was put into it is more than apparent.

3.) Mark Steinmetz – Greater Atlanta (Nazareli)

- Mark Steinmetz is one of my favorite photographers, he made me fall in love with black and white photography all over again when I first discovered his work. Greater Atlanta is his newest book focusing on the South after releasing South Central and South East and is just as great as its predececors.

4.) Rob Hornstra & Arnold van Bruggen – Sanatorium (Self)

- Sanatorium is the first publication from Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen’s Sochi Project where they are documenting the change in Sochi, Russia before the the 2014 Olympic Games are held there. The book focuses on the sanatoria where workers were sent to “revive their spirits and strengthen their bodies” during the Soviet era. Hornstra’s new images are great and if you liked 101 Billionaires you will love Sanatorium.

5.) Robert Bergman – Selected Portraits (PS1)

- Robert Bergman had his coming out party this year with three huge exhibitions held at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, The National Gallery of Art and Yossi Milo Gallery. This book is the catalogue for Bergman’s show at PS1 and it is a treasure. I like the design of this catalogue much more than Bergman’s first book A Kind of Rapture which was released in 1998 and contains a lot of the same images. Other than the photos the essay by David Levi Strauss is a really good read. If you haven’t had a chance to see Bergman’s photos in person do so quick before the shows come down.

6.) Timothy Briner – Boonville (Self)

- I was really excited when I got an email from Tim Briner saying that he was making a small number of of books of his Boonville series to help fund the framing for his upcoming solo show at Daniel Cooney Fine Arts. The books are all hand made by Tim and show what he considers the final edit of the project which examines the current state of America by exploring six towns with the same name spread across the country. I’m pretty sure another small edition of the books will be available through the gallery during the show that will be opening on January 7th.

7.) Mitch Epstein – American Power (Steidl)

- What can I say about Mitch Epstein? Another monster release from one of the most important photographers out there today. American Power is very close to sneaking by Family Business as my favorite Epstein series.

8.) Eirik Johnson – Sawdust Mountain (Aperture)

- Eirik Johnson’s Sawdust Mountain was my favorite of this years releases by the always great Aperture Foundation. The book has everything you could hope for in a great photography book, beautiful images, great subject matter and a good design.

9.) Nicolai Howalt & Trine Søndergaard – Tree Zone (Hassla)

- When Nicolai Howalt and Trine Søndergaard get together they are unstoppable. Their first series How to Hunt had some really incredible images in it but they stopped me in my tracks with Tree Zone. The pictures are so subtle in their beauty, each page looking very similar to the one before it but the series shines because of this. Hassla put out some seriously great titles this year.
10.) Grace Kim – Love Hotel (Self)

- While I was at Melanie Flood’s place to see the Grace Kim show she had up at the time she showed me this tiny little book that Grace made in an edition of 100 for her series Love Hotel. I’ve never seen another book like this before, it is literally only 4 5/8 x 3 6/8″, the photographs each slide out of the pockets of the book and are archival pigment prints, printed on hahnemuhle fine art baryta paper. It is a true beauty and if you can get your hands on a copy I couldn’t suggest it enough.

Honorable Mentions:
- Takashi Homma – First Jay Comes (Hassla)

- Ryan McGinley – Moonmilk (Mörel)

- Eric Marth – Various Zines (Self & Medium Rare)

- Tuukka Kaila – Based On Truth (Self)

- Morad Bouchakour – s/t (d’jonge Hond)

Larry Sultan RIP

© Larry Sultan
- Just heard the news that photographer Larry Sultan died yesterday. His influence on contemporary photography is undeniable, his collaborative project with Mike Mandel Evidence and his work about his parents Pictures From Home are two of my favorites. I’m in the middle of applying to schools and was really hoping to get to work with Larry at California College of Arts. Truly sad. NY Times article here.

Prints! Prints! Prints!

- With the holiday season in full swing there are a bunch of different places to buy affordable prints and who wouldn’t want a beautiful photograph?

© Dalton Rooney
- collect.give is a new place to collect photography and also donate to a worthy cause, as all of the photographers have pledged to give 100% of the profits to a worthwhile cause they support. Find great editions from Emily Shur, John Loomis, Susana Raab, Dalton Rooney, Kevin J. Miyazaki and Allison V. Smith.

© Ron Jude
- It is also the time of the year for Blind Spot’s Annual Benefit Auction. I can’t believe the amount of great work in the auction, if only I was rich and could buy the Taj Forer, Ron Jude, David La Spina, Bradley Peters, and Michael Schmelling prints, now that would make a happy Christmas morning. See the rest of the participating photographers here.

© Mike Sinclair
- 20×200 has a number of new editions available and are also having some holiday sales so be sure to check the site often.

© Ben Alper
- There are also a few personal sales going on including my own. The Exposure Project’s Ben Alper is having a print sale on his newly designed site and Brandon Hale Holmes is also having a sale of any of the work on his site, I just recieved a gorgeous 16×20 of an image from his series 97 Days in Egypt in the mail today!

Picture Black Friday

Every year, Black Friday rings in the yearly holiday shopping season, with hundreds of thousands of people getting up before sunrise to queue for bargains and deals; when the doors are unlocked, the stores being besieged by their own customers. During Black Friday last year, security guard Jdimytai Damour, was trampled to death by crazed shoppers as he tried to hold back bargain seekers at a Long Island Walmart. Unfortunately, the uproar in the media was mostly over by the end of the weekend.

Picture Black Friday is a photojournalism project that aims to revisit and analyze a combination of forces- a worsening economy, financial desperation, excitement, fear, absurdity, and a distinctly American cultural tradition- that culminate the morning after Thanksgiving.

More specifically, Picture Black Friday is an open call for photographers throughout the U.S. to go out and produce images that document Black Friday- how you see it, on your terms. Imagine this project as an open assignment: you have freedom to approach this event from any angle you wish, returning with single images or even a mini-project that documents Black Friday like no other media outlet will. A selection of these images will be exhibited on the site.

More info here and here.

New Interview

© Corey Presha
- Photographer Liz Kuball was kind enough to interview me for her blog recently through an email exchange. Please take a look here. Thanks Liz!

Mike Slack Book Signing at Dashwood

Mike Slack’s Pyramids builds on the striking Polaroid aesthetic of his previous books, Ok Ok Ok (2002) and Scorpio (2006), rounding out a trilogy of stand-alone volumes that together contain 123 pictures from the small Los Angeles based publisher The Ice Plant. This collection records everyday details of what could be a recent past or a very near future – a dust storm in the desert, simple geometry, stairways and windows, schoolchildren on a field trip-quietly dramatic scenes energized by a sense of anticipation rather than nostalgia. Presented as physical artifacts of fictitious events to be deciphered by the viewer, the pictures also document the travels, observations and graphic fixations of the photographer, centering on a set of three identical early-70’s office buildings (in Slack’s hometown of Indianapolis), from which the book takes its title.