Books

26 Self-Published and Traditional Print Reviews

The Tsushima Cyanotypes
Book Review
January 6, 2025
The Tsushima Cyanotypes is a black-and-blue photobook of cyanotypes by KC Ahonen, limited to just 200 copies. I loved flipping the 76 pages of this A5-sized uncoated book and seeing the 30 masterfully printed blue-on-white cyanotype prints. Yet, the most impactful piece of this book was the artist’s statement, where KC revealed the source of his images and its uncanny connection to our modern lives within the parallel universe from ones and zeros.
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Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures
Book Review
October 22, 2024
Accidentally Wes Anderson: Adventures is the second book from the Webby Award-winning namesake team, Accidentally Wes Anderson. Like the first edition, this book contains a collection of photography created and selected for its embodiment of the filmmaker’s cinematography. Yet, I think this second book is a little better than the first.
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Accidentally Wes Anderson
Book Review
July 4, 2024
Accidentally Wes Anderson is a phenomenon that went viral around 2017 and materialized into a book with a foreword by the man himself. It is a study of colour and composition but maybe not so much of a travel guide.
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Moscow Dayze
Read the Entire Non-Fiction Book About My “Time” Travel to Russia
March 13, 2024
Moscow Dayze was independently published as a hand-made 74-page photobook in 2021. All physical copies are sold. This article re-introduces the book in a new light and offers it as a free download to GOLD members (also available as a limited-edition download on Etsy).
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Pedestrian Detroit
An Offline Photobook Encounter
January 16, 2024
I bought my copy of Pedestrian Detroit at my favourite coffee shop down the street from home. They serve what I think is the best-tasting brew in town and often feature creative works from the community artists for sale. Pedestrian Detroit was laid in a small stack in front of the counter with a note that they’re sold on a donation basis.
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Between Here and There
Book Review
August 11, 2023
Between Here and There is a new zine by Steve Rydz. It’s a body of photographic work I connected to deeply without a word read.
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Photography Through the Pandemic
A Book Review and Introspective
May 25, 2023
Photography Through the Pandemic is a community photo book created by Holly Gilman and produced by 35mmc (Hamish Gill). It is dedicated to John Whitmore, who passed away unexpectedly as this book was being put together.
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Between Blocks
Book Review
May 20, 2023
Between Blocks is a collection of Polaroid frames filled with flowering plants of Vancouver, printed to scale across 100 pages in softcover, perfect-bound — limited to 500 copies.
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Notatki Poznańskie/Poznań Notes
Book Review
January 20, 2023
Poznań Notes is a visual journey through a Polish town during various seasons and moods. The images are often gritty with contrast, soft on focus, and dreamy (almost surreal) in nature.
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Dessert First!
Book Review
February 10, 2022
A colourful, loosely bound by an elastic string photobook about desert life by Hanna Quevedo.
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Analogue Photography in the XXI Century
A Guide to Film Photography in Lithuanian
February 1, 2022
Film photography is an international pastime. Analogue cameras have been making the day for those who live in the Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Africa, and elsewhere. Film isn’t just an English-speaking world thing, it is a global phenomenon that’s been on the rise for years.
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After Exposure: A Cyclopedia of Broken Cameras
Book Review
November 24, 2021
I learned about this book from Stephen Dowling’s website while he was helping me promote my own publication a few months back.
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Light and Film
Book Review
September 14, 2021
Light and Film is one of those well-produced large-print hardcover lookbooks. But what I think really makes it valuable is the learnable material it is filled with.
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Analog Forever
Magazine Review
April 13, 2021
Analog Forever is an annual magazine that collects works, stories, and interviews of select film photographers. It is a well-put-together, superbly designed, and meticulously curated publication that undoubtedly gives film photography a good name. The magazine is fairly priced at $30 for around 150 pages of quality colour print though the shipping, being $20 to Canada, adds a bit of a strain on the wallet.
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Optiko
Book Review
February 10, 2021
Optiko is a community project that culminated in a Kickstarter campaign back in 2017. The book is a diverse pool of eighty-seven peoples’ work that spans 276 thick, colourful pages. I have a numbered copy: 10/150. My book, same with everyone else’s, features a full-page ad for Analog.
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Small Wonders
Book Review
January 20, 2021
I got into photography about eleven years ago when I bought my first DSLR to film this skate video for a friend’s sponsorship pitch. Having completed the project, I started experimenting with stills as I scoured Flickr and 500px for inspiration. The images that did it for me were often close-ups of the little natural phenomena you’d find in a forest.
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Shanghai Streets
Magazine Review
January 18, 2021
This book features a number of mini photo stories, highlighting Lee Webb’s life adventures in one of the largest cities in China.
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Quarantine Zine
A Project Overview
November 11, 2020
Quarantine Zine’s purpose is to be a boredom breaker for the film community who may be in lockdown or unable to fully enjoy their life due to COVID-19. The idea is to be deliberately low-tech and low quality, much like an art zine that students would put together using school resources, like scissors, glue and photocopiers and a stapler.
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Commuterland
Magazine Review
October 3, 2020
The images Meredith published in her fantastic little magazine aren’t shot on a film camera. They are digital creations, sneaked from a train onto paper. The zine is dedicated to Keith, whom Merideth must care plenty about as the amount of attention to detail in this publication is remarkable.
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SilvergrainClassics International Quarterly Magazine
Magazine Review
November 12, 2019
SilvergrainClassics is a one-of-a-kind magazine on film photography. It’s released quarterly on 100 pages of thick photo paper. Every run, currently at 10,000 copies per issue, is professionally colour graded and bound at a reputable German press facility.
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