Tips & Technique Books / Z

In a very short space of time, Geert Broertttes lost the most important women in his life. His aunt, grandmother and mother passed away. He shared his grief with his girlfriend, who became a recurring theme in this series. But even this relationship ended, a couple of months after his mother passed. Broertjes photographed the process instinctively. It was only afterwards that he noticed the coherence of his work. It became a poetic story about love, loss and grief.

I communicate with the world by creating visual narratives of composited photographs, often illuminating that in-between moment in time. It is how I explore dreams deferred, connections to prior generations, the natural world and our place within it. Making art is my psychological release, my obsession and my salvation.

In Lost Venice (Damiani, April 2020) photographer Sarah Hadley presents an alluring and haunting portrayal of this majestic city as distilled through her personal lens of loss and nostalgia. By contemplating the temporal beauty of Venice, Hadley examines our own impermanence and the uncertain future of this unique city.

Same-sex relations are illegal in thirty-two African countries. Most, including Kenya and Uganda, were former British colonies, and the legacy of the colonialists' anti-gay legislation can be felt to this day. In 2014 Uganda introduced a so-called "kill the gays" law that sought to broaden the criminalization of same-sex relations, making it punishable by life imprisonment and, in some instances, death. In 2019 Uganda's Minister of Ethics and Integrity called to introduce such a bill once again.

Stephan Vanfleteren is mainly known to the general public for his penetrating black & white portrait photography, but over the past decades his work has ranged to documentary, artistic and personal pictures. From street photography in world cities like New York to the genocide of Ruanda, from storefront façades to the mystical landscapes of the Atlantic wall, from still lifes to intense portraits. The iconic images sit side by side with unknown treasures in this heavy tome containing no less than 505 photographs.

The tourist season is over, the promenade is empty and Brexit is at the door when Benita Suchodrev returns to the British coastal town of Blackpool to photograph the hidden reality behind the famous Amusement Mile. She leads us to local churches, soup kitchens, youth shelters, old age homes and impoverished neighborhoods, meets bizarre characters, underage mothers, drug-addicts, artists, and hermits. She photographs strangers on train platforms, homeless in torn rags feasting on ham sandwiches and coffee under a dark overpass, closed storefronts and deserted alleys on a rainy night.

Coincidences, the first monograph from American photographer Jonathan Higbee, comprises over ten years of Higbee's work on the streets of New York City, including iconic and never-before-published photographs. A self-professed love letter to New York, Higbee captures moments of serendipity when people and their surroundings collide in beautiful, humorous and sometimes extraordinary ways. Aperture Gallery & Bookstore will host a book release and reception for Coincidences on Tuesday, November 5 at 6:30pm.

In 2003, photographic artist Charlotta María Hauksdóttir moved from her native Iceland to California to study photography. The relocation stirred in her a sense of rootlessness and a yearning for the landscapes of her childhood. She began making regular trips to Iceland to take photographs of the breathtaking landscapes of fjords, mountains, craggy shorelines and glaciers that she would then reconstruct and repurpose in her studio, as we do our memories. The resulting images are published in A Sense of Place: Imprints of Iceland by Charlotta María Hauksdóttir (Daylight Books, January 2020). The book reveals how the physical space of landscapes can be closely tied to a person's identity, sense of being, and personal history.

Here is a selection of photo books that, in my opinion, should be in your library! It is of course a very subjective choice and if I could, I would have chosen at least 50 of them. This collection will help you to draft your 'wish list' or to find the perfect gift for someone who enjoys photography. Happy Holidays!