I’ve been on the Stanley/Barker email list for some time now… for many months, this posed a problem stemming from an undiagnosed compulsive disorder, whereby I bought pretty much every photobook or photobook-adjacent object that came to my attention. If it was just the Stanley/Barker list, it would be bad enough, but I’m also on the Mack and Aperture lists, and they put out far more books than do Stanley/Barker.

Anyway, sometime in early 2021 they announced the forthcoming Fingerprint, a collection of facsimile polaroids (the peel-apart type) from Jim Goldberg, made during his time working on Raised by Wolves. I somehow skipped the first round… maybe I waited too long and it sold out (it did so in 5 days). Then, in March, 2021, they announced a second printing and I jumped on it.

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In early 2021, Stanley/Barker announced Jim Goldberg‘s Fingerprint, a collection of polaroids from Goldberg’s Raised by Wolves project. At the time, as regards photobooks, I was in mindless ‘Buy It Now’ mode, but somehow missed out on the first printing. (They sold out in 5 days.) Stanley/Barker announced a second printing in March and I jumped on that one. When it arrived, I realized that I probably needed to know something about the project these images came from, for context and review purposes, and after some days repeatedly refreshing bookfinder, I found a beat up copy of Raised by Wolves from the Richmond Public Library for less than 1/4 of the going rate.

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Ross McDonnell‘s Joyrider was the Charcoal Photobook of the Month for October, 2021. Due to production and shipping delays, it only arrived here on December 3. The book is a look inside the now long-demolished Ballymun projects in Dublin, at the young people who hung out in the abandoned housing estate and what they got up to in the months leading up to the Block’s demolition. As one might expect, for whatever reason and on whatever side of the political spectrum, it’s not the most upbeat look at adolescence.

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Today’s Special: New York City Photographs 1969 – 2006 is a collection of Jeff Rothstein‘s photos, made in the city and in the years mentioned in the subtitle. There’s not much more to say about it, really, but I’ll try…

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The Day in Its Color: Charles Cushman’s Photographic Journey Through a Vanishing America was another Twitter recommendation, and a really nice find. Eric Sandweiss’ nearly book-length essay provides background and commentary to Charles Cushman’s expansive archive of color slides. While I wish there was more in the way of plates, it’s all together a good thing, and really rather obnoxiously cheap.

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