Six Photobooks by Female Photographers You Should Know About
There was a time when almost every woman involved in photography was sitting in front of the lens. Things have progressed markedly but there’s still major advances to be made.
Established female photographers are commanding attentions and pushing the photographic medium, not least in the format of photobooks. With thousands published every year, it can be difficult to cut through the mass to find the gems. Dedicated solely to the phenomenal work that female photographers are putting out, here’s my selection of favourite photobooks from this year.
When Carina Hesper was creating this body of work, China’s One Child Policy was still in effect. A saddeningly large number of disabled children were abandoned, becoming orphans. Hesper creates portraits that oppose the stereotypical victim portraits with which we are familiar. We see them laughing, full of curiosity and most importantly, as children.
Upon first viewing, the book appears to be a completely black. However when you touch the pages the images then appear. Like a Child IN My Hand is printed with thermochromatic ink which is opaque at room temperature and transparent at 25 degrees Celsius. Your hands are the missing ingredient in the alchemy that revelas the true contents of the book.
Hidden within the blackness are patches of the truth. Our touches unveil the social crisis and China’s shame. Hesper has created a long-term project to work with the children that she befriended at Bethel Orphanage in Beijing.
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A cross between Nan Goldin and Martin Parr, Natasha Caruana’s work is one view. Aesthetically, her images challenge photography’s idea of what is beautiful, but it is the concept that steals the show. Caruana spent one year going on a total of eighty dates with married men.
A disposable camera captures glimpses of anonymous and furtive moments. The concealment reveals the mood of the meeting, the pensive men she met and the delicate nature of this extra-marital taboo.
Caruana proves that photographic technique is nothing without a concept.Whilst these photographs show us nothing but half finished meals, elbows on the table and nervous hands collapsed together, they give us the truth and honesty in to an affair, which Caruana makes us realise isn’t as rousing as it may seem.
These photographs make for awkward viewing; you’re personally taking part in this secrecy. Do I need to listen to the problems of these daunted men, troubled with their married lives? Am I responsible for them? Of course not, but I can’t help feel some sympathy for them. I want to understand their restlessness and unhappiness. Photography is not a medium that lends itself communicating nuances of emotion, but Caruana does exactly that. Married Men really creates an edgy mood. This is one photobook that will stay hidden in your mind like the secret they both shared.
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A fan of her previous work, Dive Dark Dream Slow, I’m torn between how I feel about Melissa Catanese’s most recent photobook, Hells Hallow Fallen Monarch. Catanese tells the story of deer hunting between the mid-19th century and early 20th century. I am personally against hunting, and Catanese has told this narrative in such a formal and standardized way that she does not show an opinion for either side.
I find it hard to view such images. The contrast between the old black and white archive and the current photographs of the hunter looking through the forest for the deer remind me that this practice still goes on in the United States.
Catanese designed and sequenced the photobook in an uncomplicated, uniform manner. She uses difference sizes for images of different types of images. Note the contrast between the portraits of hunters showing us the raw, visceral details of the hunt, and the calmness of Catanese’s forest studies which deliver the atmosphere of solitude and surreal quiet in which the hunt takes place.
Hells Hallow Fallen Monarch will cause mixed opinions because of the controversial subject, but the way Catanese has documented hunting — partly with an eye to historically archiving — will undoubtedly draw deserved praise.
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Simple, crisp and serene, The Meadow is a result of Barbara Bosworth and Margot Anne Kelley’s collaborative study of one meadow for more than a decade. The concept is so minimalistic, yet I am fascinated. The photobook contains photographs of the landscape, images of specific details about the meadow, and maps of the meadow dating back to the 1800’s.
The history behind this one location is so large that as well as their own thoughts and opinions on the meadow they have also included others’ opinions from botanists, entomologists, naturalists and historians. We see the documentation of wildlife and plants growing there, as well as the studies and findings of previous research projects specifically focused on this location.
You truly begin to realise how much content there is within one beautiful location. Subtle blues, verdant greens and woody beiges speak to the perfections of nature, through different seasons and weathers. When viewing this book, we see more than ‘pretty’ landscapes. Bosworth and Kelley distill a colossal amount of history and life that has lived within this one inconspicuous hidden gem.
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In a special edition created for Self Publish Be Happy, Esther Teichmann has created a photobook that contrasts and compares the female human form with art.
SPBH Book Club Vol. V has been produced in a way similar to a sketchbook and has three main elements. Firstly, the use of the female body, used in various ways of different positions and manipulated to have an x-ray approach, something similar to the work of Man Ray, showing the shapes of the body and the true beauty it holds. Next, we have the use of the still life objects, shown crudely as sexual imitations, making us think about the relationship between our own bodies and natural exterior that we live in. Thirdly, the backgrounds that Teichmann uses, trees in the jungle, caves glowing wildly and the calm flow of the river. There is a fuse between impressionism art, with watercolours and acrylic landscapes drawn in such delicate and detailed approach, mixed with our modern artist understandings, the visions may have changed between the artist and the female body, but their underlying ideas have not. Honestly, this photobook may not be for everyone, but it’s a must if you share an interest in the human form and women in art.
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Strong shapes, different textures and a full advantage of greyscale used, Carly Steinburnn has created a vision of beauty. The Voyage Of Discovery is exactly at it would suggest — a journey into the surprising and new. Works so effective that you’l feel like you are being sprayed by the overwhelming waves and, if you can reach far enough into the page, pricked by Steinburnn’s cacti.
Steinburnn adopts a scientific approach, taking ordinary concepts of what we presume to see as explorers of our world, and arranging them in an unsystematic and unexplainable pattern, showing that no two travelers go on the same adventure, and perhaps allowing the viewer to create their own journey.
Admirably, Steinburnn doesn’t felt the need to fill the page up. She’s not afraid to leave pages blank, and this lets the images speak for themselves. The textures and the details really shine through, particularly with the use of monochrome. The Voyage Of Discovery is already a timeless classic. But it has that feel like it’s always existed, nascent. And, now, it always will. A treasure discovered.
