After finding and absolutely loving Paul Kwiatkowski’s And Every Day was Overcast,* I’ve kept half an eye out for other things. Kwiatkowski isn’t the most active, doesn’t seem to have a website, and I somehow stumbled across Ghost Guessed, his 2018 book with Tom Griggs.
Continue reading “Tom Griggs & Paul Kwiatkowski – ‘Ghost Guessed’”Eve Arnold – ‘The Unretouched Woman’
The Unretouched Woman is a 1976 collection/monograph of Eve Arnold’s photographs of women around the world, from the American South and South Africa, to Russia, the Hindu Kush, and Mamie Eisenhower in a funhouse mirror. It’s at turns touching and revelatory, and is available for stupidly cheap prices all over.
Continue reading “Eve Arnold – ‘The Unretouched Woman’”75-150? Meet 75-150
Last fall, I acquired a beat up old camera bag from my dad. Unpacking it, I found a largely complete Olympus OM 10 kit: 28, 50, 75-150 lenses; flash; manual adapter; filters; brackets and cables to take the flash off camera. It’s almost as if someone went into a Penny’s or Sears’s in about 1980 and got talked into way more than they ever needed.
Back in 2012, when I first picked up the D7000, and on Ken Rockwell’s recommendation,* I acquired a 75-150 Series E. I dropped the camera on it shortly after, creating the one-and-only Zomb-E, and later acquired another copy.
Having tested (minimally, as is my standard) the 28mm f/3.5 G-Zuiko and the 50mm f/1.8 F. Zuiko, I decided it was finally time to see how the 75-150mm f/4 Zuiko fares when pitted against the vaunted Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 E-Series.
Continue reading “75-150? Meet 75-150”Martin Bogren – ‘August Song’
Martin Bogren‘s August Song is a lovely collection of half frame, black & white photographs taken at rural dances in the Swedish countryside, and was the Charcoal Book Club photobook of the month for April 2020.
Continue reading “Martin Bogren – ‘August Song’”Ben Brody – ‘Attention Servicemember’
Ben Brody‘s Attention Servicemember was on everyone’s radar when it first appeared in 2019, and quickly sold out. Not being one to be particularly interested in war or fighting or pictures of either, I didn’t jump on it. Thankfully, it was Charcoal Book Club’s photobook of the month for January 2020, and so I ended up with a signed copy of the first, Red Hook Editions edition. Brody has since reissued the book, with some new pictures added, on Mass Books, his imprint with Peter Van Agtmael.
Continue reading “Ben Brody – ‘Attention Servicemember’”Some Fun with the Sprocket Rocket
One day back a few weeks ago, I walked past the camera shelf and the Sprocket Rocket caught my eye. Looking back in my tracker, I realized I hadn’t shot it in over two years, and so quickly loaded a roll of Lomo Color 400 to document the building of a new shed, and later to enjoy some of the new blooms at the Dallas Arboretum. All in all, it was a good time with a fun camera that I should probably shoot more often.
Continue reading “Some Fun with the Sprocket Rocket”Peter Van Agtmael – ‘Sorry for the War’
I always thought that if I were to make a war story about these conflicts, it would be about a unit that goes on patrol. Their vehicle gets blown to pieces by an improvised explosive hidden in the road, burning to death several soldiers and taking the limbs off of others, who barely survive. The rest of the unit searches desperately for something to shoot. They fail and return to base, where they go to the dining hall and decide which of the ten varieties of pie they’d like to eat.
Van Agtmael, Peter. Sorry for the War. Mass Books, MA. Unpaged, in the discussion of an image titled “Atlanta, Georgia. USA. 2016.”
If I wasn’t fairly sure of Peter Van Agtmael‘s view of the various wars and interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan after his excellent Disco Night Sept 11, the quote above, from Sorry for the War, makes it absolutely clear.
Continue reading “Peter Van Agtmael – ‘Sorry for the War’”