Best Books 2013 Best Books 2013 Blake Andrews Best Books picks from photographer and writer Blake Andrews.
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By NASA/MRO
Aperture
David Maisel meets NASA on a planet orbiting Frederick Sommer. Beautiful monochromes verging on outright psychedelia, with wonderful accompanying text, in a book large enough to generate its own gravitational field.
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By Jeff Jacobson
Daylight Books
Jacobsen's photos made during cancer recovery take him away from photojournalism and into impressionist territory. An homage to Kodachrome and other dying methods, but more importantly a tribute to living.
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By Jason Fulford
The Soon Institute
Unlike many photographers exploring the book form as creative vehicle, Fulford has a fantastic eye for individual photos. Most photos here would hold attention hung large on a wall. Fulford shrinks them into book form and sews them into a written narrative.
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By Mark Steinmetz
Nazraeli Press
Yet another volume of black and white gems from the quiet master of quotidian revery. Steinmetz ventures into the city of cliché and somehow escapes with a clutch of original visions.
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By Mike Brodie
Twin Palms Publishers
In the wrong hands this project could've gone off the rails into exploitation or photojournalist mush. But The Polaroid Kidd combines tenderness with a
sharp eye for content while casting hobo subculture in a fresh light, before eventually abandoning the art world to rejoin it.
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By Garry Winogrand
Yale University Press
A sprawling, unwieldy, sloppy, fantastic tome teeming with contradictions, aphorisms, gems, and misfires. Winogrand's perfect epitaph…so far.
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By Kadir Guirey
Steidl
Found snapshots, fan passion, and a legendary athlete are potent ingredients. But what sets this book apart is the clever tromp l' oeil design, which mimics an old scrapbook down to the last detail including puffed cover. A photobook that takes up the simulacra mantle right where photography left it.
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By Vanessa Winship
HCB Foundation/MACK
Who says old-school black and white documentary is dead? A deft combination of social landscape, nature study, and portrait, beautifully bound in red cloth. Consider this the coming out party for Winship as a landscape shooter.
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By Glen Luchford
Dashwood Books
I'm a sucker for happy accidents, and this small pamphlet embraces the spirit of serendipity from its subject matter - water-damaged photos - to its high/low mix of fashion and snapshot, to its inverted colophon design. When life gives you lemons, let the lemonade run down the gutter.
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By Samuel W. Grant
Self Published
A small collection of European streetscapes
bearing not a whiff of the modern world. Shot in
black and white with plastic cameras over the
course of several years, then printed in a tidy
volume not much larger than a sandwich. Tasty.
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Blake Andrews is a photographer based in Eugene, OR. He writes about photography at blakeandrews.blogspot.com.
