For this installment of Photobooks Under $30, we traverse a snowy Colorado landscape in LBM Dispatch #5 by Alec Soth & Brad Zellar, consider the connection between religious poetry and photographs of nature in Prayers in an American Church by Robert Adams, and dive into an abstract, murky world of black & white photographs in Back Yard by Daisuke Yokota.
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| Alec Soth & Brad Zellar'sLBM Dispatch #5: Colorado |
In LBM Dispatch #5 — a newsprint publication of photographs by Alec Soth and writings by Brad Zellar — the two trek through the state of Colorado documenting small towns and the people they meet as they crisscross the Continental Divide. Charming portraits mixed with vast, snowy landscapes give us a sense of life in Colorado's small towns during the Spring.
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| Robert Adams' Prayers in an American Church |
Prayers in an American Church is one of the more personal photobooks of photographer Robert Adams. Published in an edition of only 1,000 hand-numbered copies, his black & white photographs of trees are paired with prayers and religious poetry. Prayers in an American Church invites the viewer to consider the parallels between art and religion, both of which require faith and belief.
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| Daisuke Yokota's Back Yard |
Selected as a Best Book of 2012 by John Gossage, Back Yard is a curious little softbound photobook self-published by photographer Daisuke Yokota. The heavy black photographs appear to be reproduced on a photocopier – and the dark, grainy reproductions work well to permeate the book with mystery. Sometimes it is hard to discern the details of the photographs but the abstraction is welcome. The mind loves to look for distinguishable details in the darkness, occasionally finding something that reveals the contents of the photograph. The only words printed in Back Yard appear on the cover – giving us no context but a title, leaving room for the viewer to attach their own meaning and understanding of what is presented. --Erin Azouz