The winners of Summertime

Coney Island is an American icon celebrated worldwide, a fantasyland of the past with an evolving present and an irrepressible optimism about its future. It is a democratic entertainment where people of all walks of life and places are brought together.

There isn’t anywhere else like it, and that is much of its appeal. Here 170 evocative black-and-white images taken by eminent photographer Harvey Stein from 1970 through 2020 simultaneously look back in time while giving a current view to the people and activities of this “poor man’s Riviera.” The images capture the wonder and intimacy of Coney Island. There is no photo book that has been published that documents a 50-year time period of a famous location taken by one photographer. Being in Coney Island is like stepping into another society, rather than just experiencing a day’s entertainment.

A newly expanded edition of Sternfeld’s popular portrayal of the High Line’s early days.

With nine additional photos, a larger format and an expanded, up-to-date timeline, this is the new and revised edition of Joel Sternfeld’s Walking the High Line, which documents the overgrown elevated freight rail line above New York’s West Side before it was transformed into the cherished High Line public park in 2009.

In the dark days following the September 11 attacks in New York in 2001, Joel Sternfeld came to Gerhard Steidl with the hope of quickly making a book. For the previous two years Sternfeld had been photographing the abandoned railroad and working with a group, the Friends of the High Line, that wanted to save it and turn it into a park. Powerful real estate and political interests seeking to tear it down and commercially develop the land beneath it were using the chaos of the period to rush forward their plans. Steidl agreed―six weeks later there were finished books in New York. It was a small volume but it played a crucial role in allowing New Yorkers to see for the first time the beauty of a secret railroad in all the seasons.

Like the photographs made by William Henry Jackson in the 1870s of Yellowstone that led Congress to establish a national park, the pictures proved pivotal in the making of the High Line’s reputation.

South African photographer Lindokuhle Sobekwa (born 1995) began this project after finding a family portrait with his sister Ziyanda’s face cut out. He describes her as a secretive, rebellious and rough presence and recalls the dark day when she chased him and he was hit by a car: she disappeared hours later and returned only a decade later, ill. By this time, Sobekwa had become a photographer and realized the family had no picture of her. However, Ziyanda died before he could photograph her.

Employing a scrapbook aesthetic with handwritten notes, I Carry Her Photo with Me is a means for Sobekwa to engage both with the memory of his sister and the wider implications of such disappearances―a troubling part of South Africa’s history. The book complements his wider work on fragmentation, poverty and the long-reaching ramifications of apartheid and colonialism across all levels of South African society.

A magnificently illustrated history showcasing the work of three hundred women photographers from all over the world, from the invention of the medium through to the present.
Since the invention of the camera, women photographers have been key innovators in the medium and members of all major photography movements. These are artists who never stopped documenting, questioning, and transforming the world, breaking down social boundaries, challenging gender roles, and expressing their imagination and sexuality.
To capture the diversity of this global body of work, authors Luce Lebart and Marie Robert have invited 160 international women writers to contribute to this bold and beautifully illustrated manifesto.
Spanning from 1850 to the present day, and including images by Helen Levitt, Carrie Mae Weems, Hannah Höch, Sarah Moon, Eve Arnold, and Shirin Neshat, among many others, A World History of Women Photographers is an invaluable work of reference.