By Ilisa Barbash, Molly Rogers, and Deborah Willis. Foreword by Henry Louis Gates, Jr
Publisher : Aperture
2020 | 488 pages
To Make Their Own Way in the World is a profound consideration of some of the most challenging images in the history of photography: fifteen daguerreotypes of Alfred, Delia, Drana, Fassena, Jack, Jem, and Renty-men and women of African descent who were enslaved in South Carolina.
Photographed by Joseph T. Zealy for Harvard professor Louis Agassiz in 1850, they were rediscovered at Harvard's Peabody Museum in 1976. This groundbreaking multidisciplinary volume features essays by prominent scholars who explore such topics as the identities of the people depicted in the daguerreotypes, the close relationship between photography and race, and visual narratives of slavery and its lasting effects. With over two hundred illustrations, including new photography by Carrie Mae Weems, this book frames the Zealy daguerreotypes as works of urgent engagement.
American photographers documented and defined the twentieth century in a remarkable array of images, the style and content of which evolved dramatically over the course of the century. In Disappearing Witness, photographer and art historian Gretchen Garner chronicles this transformation, from the introduction of the 35-millimeter camera in the 1920s to the digital photography of today. Accompanied by over 125 key works in the history of photography—fine-art, documentary, and editorial—her thoughtful and enlightening discussion traces American photography's aesthetic, commercial, and technological changes, as the medium's primary role of spontaneous witness gradually gave way to contrived arrangement and artistic invention. Garner discusses direct witness as the dominant paradigm for American photographers from the 1920s to the 1960s. During these decades, photographers saw their medium primarily as a vehicle for truthful description and sometimes as a weapon against social injustice. In the 1960s, however, photographic practice and its cultural significance shifted to reflect more personal, idiosyncratic, and staged visions of reality—a trend, Garner notes, that has intensified with digital photography. The major portion of the book is devoted to post-1960s work, exploring how the changes have affected portraiture, documentary, landscape, still life, fashion, and the new genre of self-imagery. In documenting this transformation in American photography, Disappearing Witness forcefully rethinks the history of photography itself.
In 1909 the French banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn launched a monumentally ambitious project: to produce a color photographic record of human life on Earth. An internationalist and pacifist, Kahn believed that he could use the new autochrome--the world's first portable, true-color photographic process--to create a global photographic archive that would promote cross-cultural understanding and peace. Over the next twenty years, he sent a group of photographers to more than fifty countries around the world, amassing more than 72,000 images. Until recently his collection was all but forgotten. Now, a century after he began his "Archives of the Planet" project, this book--richly illustrated in color throughout--and the BBC series it follows are bringing Kahn's dazzling early twentieth-century pictures to a wide audience for the first time, and putting color into what we usually think of as a monochrome world.
Kahn's photographers captured times, places, and people we simply do not expect to see in color photographs. They documented age-old cultures on the brink of being changed forever by war, modernization, and Westernization, recording the last years of Ireland's traditional Celtic villages and the late days of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. They photographed First World War soldiers in their trenches as well as the postwar celebrations in London. In the course of their travels, they also took the earliest color photographs in countries as varied as Vietnam and Brazil, Mongolia and Norway, Benin and the United States.
After being financially ruined in the Great Depression, Kahn was forced to bring his project to a premature end, but today his collection of early color photographs is recognized as one of the world's most important. The Dawn of the Color Photograph makes it easy to see why.
Alongside an exploration of Bayard’s decades-long career and lasting impact, Hippolyte Bayard and the
Invention of Photography (J. Paul Getty Museum, $65) presents—for the first time in print—some of the earliest
photographs in existence. Among the Getty Museum’s rarest and most treasured photographic holdings is an
album containing nearly 200 images, 145 of those by or attributed to Bayard. Few of these prints have ever
been seen in person due to the extreme light sensitivity of Bayard’s experimental processes, making this an
essential reference for scholars and photography enthusiasts alike.
For seven years, American photographer Barbara Peacock crisscrossed the United States photographing people in the spaces they defined as their bedrooms. The bedroom is an inherently personal space where humans are perhaps at their most vulnerable. Whether a room in a house, a camper, or an outdoor space, Peacock presents a body of work that invites the viewer to consider the stories we each carry, and how those unify us all.
SINK / RISE is the third chapter of The Day May Break, an ongoing global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. This third chapter focuses on South Pacific Islanders impacted by rising oceans from climate change. The local people in these photos, photographed underwater in the ocean off the coast of the Fijian islands, are representatives of the many people whose homes, land and livelihoods will be lost in the coming decades as the water rises. Everything is shot in-camera underwater.
The passing of time has a way of adding context and layers of meaning to any story, and photographer Lisa McCord's expansive and nuanced project and book, Rotan Switch, (Kehrer Verlag, May 2024) reflects the dedication of over 40 years of observation and documentation of her rural southern family farm and community.
I discovered Michael Joseph's work in 2016, thanks to Ann Jastrab. I was immediately captivated by the power of his beautiful black and white photographs from his series 'Lost and Found.' His haunting portraits of young Travelers have stayed with me ever since.
Through conceptual imagery, intimate portraits, and reflections in writing from a wide variety of women and girls ages 13-81, artist and former actor and model Jamie Schofield Riva presents an in-depth exploration of what it's like as a girl trying to navigate a world full of "preconceived notions of what it means to be a woman." Her selection of images presents an assessment between generations of the intersections between cultural and social conditioning and messages about the female gender, and considerations of the implication of the stereotypes of femininity.
Renowned photographer Brice Gelot is proud to announce the release his first Archives book. This stunning volume offers a captivating journey through his lens, showcasing his unique perspective and profound artistic vision, featuring a carefully curated selection of his most iconic works,
In January 2020, North Korea officially closed its borders. But even
before that date, photographing the enigmatic landscapes of North
Korea posed immense challenges due to the regime's strict control
and prohibition of unauthorized photography. However, from a vast
archive of images captured painstakingly over two years, in this book
Tariq Zaidi curates a selection of more than 100 remarkable photographs that offer a wider perspective on a society often misunderstood and overshadowed by stereotypes.
In his debut photobook 'Hong Kong' (Kehrer Verlag, April 2024), Finnish photographer and New York Times' photo editor Mikko Takkunen captures one of the world’s great metropolises in the aftermath of political protests and on the brink of a pandemic. Inspired by New York School masters like Louis Faurer and Saul Leiter, he presents Hong Kong in a new light, exploring hidden perspectives and moods. His photographs, balancing between documentary and subjective, are accompanied by an essay by Geoff Dyer. Amidst the city's uncertainties in 2020 and facing the impending relocation of his family overseas, Takkunen felt an urgent need to document the city while he still could. 'Hong Kong' is a poignant farewell, encapsulating his love for the city and concerns about what might be lost as it undergoes irreversible changes.
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