Larissa Leclair

a selection of books from the list

It was an honor to share my list of photobooks that made an impression this year for photo-eye‘s “Best Books of 2010.” For their list I intentionally wanted to highlight mostly self-published titles that had passed by my desk on their way to the Indie Photobook Library. Ten was just too limiting a number for me, and because I focused on self-published titles, I ended up omitting my favorite traditional trade publications. So here is the extended list (in no particular order) that includes everything from artist books, zines, self-published and indie published photobooks, to trade editions.

The Best Books of 2010 extended

Get Off My Lawn by Geoffrey Ellis, Noah Beil, Grant Ernhart, Alan W George, Liz Kuball, Sarah Lacy, Ian Lemmonds, Jennifer Loeber, Dalton Rooney, Andrew Martin Scott, Justin Visnesky (self-published by Geoffrey Ellis, 2010) *

Interior Relations by Ian van Coller (Doring Press/self-published, 2010) *

Kitintale by Yann Gross (self-published, 2010) *

10: 10 Years of in-public by Nick Turpin, David Gibson, Richard Bram, Matt Stuart, Andy Morley-Hall, Trent Parke, Narelle Autio, Jesse Marlow, Adrian Fisk, Nils Jorgensen, Melanie Einzig, Jeffrey Ladd, Amani Willett, Gus Powell, Christophe Agou, Otto Snoek, Blake Andrews, David Solomons, George Kelly, Paul Russell (Nick Turpin Publishing, 2010) *

Fragments, Volume 1 by John Steck Jr (Make Book Blog/self-published, 2010) *

NY low and high by Marco Onofri (self-published, 2010) *

Carry Me Ohio by Matt Eich (self-published, 2010)

Tell mum everything is ok – issue 3 – “A Postmodern World“ by many contributing photographers (Editions FP&CF, 2010) *

The Kaddu Wasswa Archive: A Visual Biography by Andrea Stultiens and Arthur C. Kisitu (post editions, 2010) *

Eastward Bound by Marco van Duyvendijk (self-published, 2010) *

See You Soon by Maxwell Anderson (Bemojake/self-published, 2010) * and its sequel Ten Days in July by Maxwell Anderson (Bemojake/self-published, 2010) *

Thrills & Chills by Isa Leshko (Exit 12 Press/self-published, 2010) *

Burn.01 by many contributing photographers, edited by David Alan Harvey, Anton Kusters, Anna-Maria Barry-Jester and Diego Orlando (David Alan Harvey, 2010) *

Lay Flat 02: Meta edited by Shane Lavalette and Guest Editor Michael Buehler-Rose with many contributing photographers (Lay Flat, 2010) *

Not Many Kingdoms Left by Jeff Luker (PogoBooks, 2010) *

Working the Line by David Taylor (Radius Books, 2010)

Zwelethu Mthethwa (Aperture, 2010)

Days with My Father by Phillip Toledano (Chronicle, 2010)

A Road Divided by Todd Hido (Nazraeli, 2010)

Hiroshi Sugimoto (Hatje Cantz, 2010)

Fault Lines: Turkey /East /West by George Georgiou (Schilt Publishing, 2010)

Books marked with an * can be found in the Indie Photobook Library. Click on the * to take you to the iPL catalog record for each book. If you cannot find a way to purchase books through the photographers’ websites or book sites, visit photoeye.com. The first ten books listed above were part of Photo-Eye’s “Best Books of 2010″.

Point Pleasant, NJ #1, 2006 © Isa Leshko

The image above by Isa Leshko from her “Thrills & Chills” series reminds me of the image by Robert Adams that begins his revised and expanded edition of “Summer Nights, Walking.” I originally saw Adams’ image in the exhibition “In the Darkroom” at the National Gallery of Art and sought out his book just for that one image. I had hoped for more of the same, but for those who know this series, the amusement ride image seems an outlier. For Leshko, though, these rides are the focus.

Isa Leshko’s solo exhibition “Thrills & Chills” is currently on view at the Houston Arts Alliance, co-organized by the Houston Center for Photography and the John Cleary Gallery, and includes twenty-one prints from the series. The exhibition runs through December 31, 2010. space125gallery, 3201 Allen Parkway, Houston, TX 77019

courtesy of the Houston Arts Alliance

About this work Leshko writes, “[a]musement park rides terrify me, which is why I began photographing them. I am fascinated by what compels people to surrender themselves to these mechanical beasts. The rides seem to challenge the very limitations of being human. We can’t fly; yet these vertigo-inducing machines allow us to soar through the open air. The experience combines elation with fear; thrills with chills.

These images explore the fantastic and sinister place these rides hold in my imagination. With some of these images, I suspend disbelief and embrace the underlying fantasies of these rides. With other images, I examine the tensions that exist between fantasy and reality. I am interested in exploring the range of emotions—from anger to shock to exultation—that people exhibit in pursuit of the amusement these rides are supposed to provide.”

Coaster at Dusk, Hershey Park, PA 2008 © Isa Leshko

To see more work from “Thrills & Chills” visit Leshko’s website as well as the John Cleary Gallery. There is also a collectible little limited edition book available of this work.

310 conTEMPORARY / RELATIVE EXPOSURE: photographs of family
December 6, 2010 — January 29, 2011
310 S. Michigan, Chicago, IL
Monday – Saturday 11:30-5:30

Artists’ Reception: Thursday, December 16, 2010 5:00 — 8:00 pm

“RELATIVE EXPOSURE | photographs of family” features the work of Nick Albertson, Matt Austin, Latrice Dixon, Aron Gent, Julie Jones, Heather Kouros, Natalie Krick, and Eric Pickersgill. The 310 conTEMPORARY Gallery is a collaborative project between the Columbia College Chicago Photography Department and the Hyde Park Art Center. This exhibition is part of Chicago Loop Alliance’s Pop-Up Art Loop initiative.

I’m a big fan of Matt Austin and his photographic work and for this exhibition I love the fact that he is the only one not showing work in a framed photo form. Instead, his artist book “Wake” will be on view (see images above)-  a stunning hand-made box of loose prints and text. This format for presentation slows down the reading of the work and creates an intimate dialog with the viewer.

“Wake,” as well as three other titles, “Freedom Isn’t Free,” “Try to be more positive,” and “Desert Days,” can be found in the permanent collection of the Indie Photobook Library. And if you live in Chicago, copies of “Wake” can be borrowed for a two-week period. Love that. To find out more about Matt Austin, visit his website and tumblr, and read his recent interview at Geronimo Projects.

“Objects and Places” – Photographs by Alan Trachtenberg
Yale University, Koerner Center, 149 Elm St., New Haven, CT
Open weekdays, 9 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-4 p.m.

“Object and Places” closes on Friday, December 17 with a reception from 3-5pm.

“Black-and-white images of diverse scenes in America — ranging from a Mississippi “ghost” town to rooftops in Pennsylvania to an upper New York state racetrack — are featured in a new exhibition of photographs by Yale professor Alan Trachtenberg at the Henry Koerner Center for Emeritus Faculty.

The exhibit, titled “Objects and Places,” is a selection of 22 photographs that Trachtenberg made over the past 30 years using a large-format (8×10) camera.” – excerpt from the Yale Daily Bulletin.

Select Books by Trachtenberg:
Classic Essays on Photography (1980)
Reading American Photographs (1990)
Lincoln’s Smile and Other Enigmas (2008)

Pleased to be a transatlantic friend of #PHONAR this semester; Jonathan Worth’s free and open undergraduate photography class live at Coventry University in the UK and online at http://phonar.covmedia.co.uk/. Read more about it here. Lots of great nuggets of thought by guest contributors including Simon Roberts, Wayne Ford, Pete Brook, and Chris Floyd, plus podcasts from visiting speakers, and #phonar followers contributions.

Inspired by Wayne Ford’s suggestions of books on Photography and Narrative, Worth has compiled the FRIENDS OF PHONAR PHOTOBOOK LIST of “notable/ inspiring/ seminal/ provocative photobooks, in it’s narrative structure/approach or perhaps in it’s ‘discussion’ of narrative.” Books on the list were nominated by Alec Soth, Andy Adams, Cory Doctorow, Daniel Meadows, David Campbell, Edmund Clark, Fred Ritchin, Geoff Dyer, Gilles Peress, Grant Scott, Harry Hardie, Jeff Brouws, Joel Meyerowitz, John Edwin Mason, Jonathan Shaw, Jonathan Worth, Ken Schles, Larissa Leclair, Ludwig Haskins, Matt Johnston, Michael Hallett, Miki Johnson, Mikko Takkunen, Nathalie Belayche, Peter Dench, Pete Brook, Sean O’Hagan, Simon Roberts, Stephen Mayes, Steve Pyke, and Todd Hido. Check out the list. What a great way to end the semester.

My selections include Intensive Care by Andrea Stultiens (2010) and Thinner Air by John Mann (2010).

Continue on with Worth and his students next semester with “Picturing the Body” (#picbod) and the Photobook Club. I look forward to following along.

Three amazing places to find photography prints this month are David Bram‘s Fraction Magazine Holiday Print Sale, Kevin Miyazaki‘s collect.give and Jen Bekman‘s 20×200. Check them out. Such great work to choose from. There are too many amazing photographers to list!

Third Annual Fraction Magazine Holiday Print Sale
100% of the sale goes to the photographer.

Beach House, Fire Island, 2009 ©Dalton Rooney

collect.give
The photographers featured on collect.give have pledged to donate 100% of the profits from their print sales to worthwhile causes they support.

Hanging Snowflake ©Melissa Kaseman

20×200
Affordable art prints.

Nethermead ©Joseph O. Holmes

It’s always in season to support photographers, the photo community, and charities. Collect.give and 20×200 come out with new images all year round and you can always contact photographers directly to purchase work. Have fun shopping.