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Author Archive: Hans Durrer
Book Review: Arctic Heroes by Ragnar Axelsson
Photographer Ragnar Axelsson (*1958) hails from Island and has been documenting the Arctic (people, animals, landscapes) for more than forty years. The black and white photographs in this book were taken between 1986 and 2020 in Greenland; they give testimony to the extraordinary relationship between sledge dogs and hunters. “Time and again, I visited small
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Location: Online Type: Black and White, Book Review, Documentary
Book Review: Old Is New by Hiroshi Sugimoto and Tomoyuki Sakakida
The firm New Material Research Laboratory (NMRL) was founded in 2008 by Hiroshi Sugimoto (born 1948) and Tomoyuki Sakakida (born 1976) and is guided by the idea that “The oldest things are the newest.” Since I’m at a loss what this exactly means, I turn to the press release that informs me that “Sugimoto and
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Location: Online Type: Architecture, Book Review, Landscapes
Book Review: The Plain by Melanie Friend
I do not find these photographs especially well-crafted, do not deem the framing very appealing but, nevertheless, I feel drawn to them because wide open spaces attract me. In other words, I do not think you can do much wrong when photographing open landscapes. Such was my take after a first and rather casual look
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Location: Online Type: Book Review, Landscapes
Book Review: Women Street Photographers Edited by Gulnara Samoilova
When thinking of street photography, Vivian Maier comes to mind, and Lisa Kahane. And then, all of a sudden, I ask myself: What the hell is a street photographer? Do they photograph only streets? Do they photograph only what can be seen when standing on a street? Melissa Breyer quotes in her introduction the Encyclopedia
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Location: Online Type: Book Review, Street Photography
Book Review: Istanbul by Timurtaş Onan
In the fall of 2006, I taught English in Istanbul, for two months. I had not prepared myself for this assignment, didn’t know anything about the city or Turkish culture. To be sure, I was not free of preconceptions like that Turkey was a country dominated by bearded men and women had not much to
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Location: Online Type: Black and White, Book Review
Book Review: Post Truth by George Byrne
These pics are simply gorgeous! To me, they are a perfect unreal aesthetic pleasure. Unreal? What was photographed is real! Right but that is not the way these photographs appear to me – the equivalent of McDonald’s ice cream: totally artificial, and tasting great! Ian Volner, in his accompanying essay “Unreal City: The Urban Sublime
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Location: Online Type: Book Review
Book Review: Growing Up Travelling by Jamie Johnson
How wonderful!, I thought when glancing through the pages of this book and experienced what I do not recall to have ever experienced when spending time with a photo book showing people: I liked every single one of these photographs, without any reservation. That might have to do with the fact that the ones portrayed
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Location: Online Type: Black and White, Book Review, Children, Portraits
Book Review: The Ameriguns by Gabriele Galimberti
My first reaction to the pics in this tome was: These people are clearly nuts! How can you want to have your picture taken surrounded by your firearms? And not just one firearm, lots of them. Moreover, the guys and gals look seemingly proud. It is way beyond me what is going on in their
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Location: Online Type: Book Review, Gun Culture, Portraits
Book Review: Congo in Conversation by Finbarr O’Reilly
What a superb shot!, was my reaction to this colourful, elegantly composed cover. Images of a BBC report from twenty years ago on a fashion show at a hotel in Blantyre, Malawi, popped up in my head, the goal of which had been to show an Africa that was something different from the usual news
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Location: Online Type: Book Review
Book Review: The World Ain’t Enough… by Oliver Raschka
Oliver Raschka, trained in economics and psychology, lives in Stuttgart, Germany. As a photographer he is essentially self-taught, in addition, he attended numerous workshops with renowned photographers. The world ain’t enough… documents the first ten years of his two sons. The black and white photographs show them at home and at play, at sporting events
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Location: Online Type: Black and White, Book Review, Childhood
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