To be honest (1), I was shocked to find that I wasn’t following Paola Franqui (aka, and hereafter, “Monaris”) on Instagram. Her lovely street photographs that remind me so much of a) Saul Leiter and b) color grading ca. ~2016 are ubiquitous on various magazine accounts on the app and you’ve no doubt seen the beautiful work, even if, like me, you don’t actually follow her. Don’t get me wrong, you should, really, if only to see her work in her own context, rather than in the context of some random dude’s (or, more likely, algorithm’s) favs feed. Momentos is her first monograph. I learned of it from a Setanta Books‘ email and ordered a copy almost straight away.

Andrew Molitor may be my favorite photo theory blogger. If you’re not a regular reader of Photothunk, do yourself a favor and get started now. Most anything Molitor writes is likely to be largely superior—theoretically—than anything you’re likely to read here. Vigilante is his most recent zine, and I like to think I may have had something, in some small way, to do with it…

Given that I just published a review of Stuart’s Into the Fire, I figured I should probably just go ahead and make this Matt Stuart week and slap up a quick review of his 2021 how-to guide, Think Like a Street Photographer.

Someone on YouTube alerted me to Matt Stuart‘s Into the Fire about two months before it came out. I can’t find the comment now, and if it’s you, thanks! I missed All that Life Can Afford by about 6 months, that is, it came out just around the time I started buying photobooks, I didn’t grab a copy when they were readily available, the book is now way too spendy for me. (A 2nd edition is available, with new images and a new edit, and I haven’t pulled the trigger on it just yet.) Anyway, I was sure to jump on Into the Fire just as soon as I heard about it.

‘Open’ is a set of 34 prints, made from 4×5 negatives exposed, in camera, in Palestine by Morgan Ashcom in 2009, then re-exposed to fluorescent light by Israeli border guards prior to development, housed in a recycled 4×5 negative box. Ashcom offered these as a sort of “Thank You” gift for donating to Human Supporters, which operates a summer camp for youth and offers dance and art classes, and various other workshops and programs for young people in Palestine.