James Cockroft

Jason Tippet – ‘Heading to Bill’s for Cigarettes’

I picked up Jason Tippet’s Heading to Bill’s for Cigarettes after reading his interview with Blake Andrews back in February 2020. It sounded like the sort of project I’ve been slowly formulating (but not shooting for or starting on in any way shape or form) for some years, and so I jumped on it. As usual with swerdnaekalb’s recommendations, it’s a good one.

My LomoMod Experience…

When Lomography announced their LomoMod No.1 cardboard DIY camera with fancy Sutton, liquid-filled lens, I wasn’t even tempted. Sure, I read the announcement, looked at the pictures and all, but I wasn’t even tempted.

But then, days later, one of my Twitter buddies mentioned it, talked about buying it just to play with the lens and shutter assembly, maybe use it for a different diy camera project. I was intrigued, and so ponied up the money to preorder one…

Stephen Shore – ‘American Surfaces’ (2020 Revised & Expanded Edition)

American Surfaces probably needs no introduction. Produced during a road trip from NYC to Amarillo, TX in 1972 (with a jaunt to the England and the US Virgin Islands) and exhibited at the LIGHT Gallery in October 1972, it’s part of the photography canon now. It took what Robert Frank (and Walker Evans before him) started—the elevation and celebration of the everyday—to new heights and didn’t receive publication until the late 1990s, and then only in a wildly abbreviated form.

The first Phaidon edition (2005/2008) expanded the original 174 photographs to 320, and this new Phaidon edition includes an additional 40, previously unpublished photos, with entirely new scans, crops, and color-correction, so while it’s a sort of reprint, it’s also something more.

Stephen Shore – Tranparencies

Transparencies: Small Camera works 1971-1979 collects, for the first time, Stephen Shore’s work with small cameras (mostly Leicas) during the period just before the American Surfaces period through the transition to large format and the vast majority of shooting for Uncommon Places. It’s interesting to see how Shore’s vision changed from the American Surfaces period through the end of the decade, and also to compare the scenes he captured with 35mm vs. those shot on 8×10.

Matthew Genitempo – Jasper

Matthew Genitempo’s Jasper was, I believe, the January 2019 photobook-of-the-month selection from the Charcoal Book Club.* It was beautifully printed and lovingly published by Twin Palms, and is a really beautiful portrait of a really beautiful place.

Some Instant Fun

The Spring 2020 Polaroid Week went down, as usual (I think), in the last week of April, and I started a day or two late and ended up rushing through most of every pack on the last day… Now, two weeks later, I still haven’t scanned everything, but I’m itching to share some photographs for a change, so let’s go!

Poulomi Basu – Centralia

Poulomi Basu’s Centralia is a disturbing and violent book of a disturbing and violent subject. It’s not for the faint of heart, it’s equally not for the hard of heart. Basu calls it “an Indian docu-fiction” that “…push[es] the boundaries of my own documentary practice – to construct a narrative that borrows from the tropes of science fiction to create a hallucinatory reflection…” And I think she succeeded.

Centralia was Charcoal Book Club’s Photobook of the Month for March 2020, and without them, this book probably wouldn’t have come across my radar.