"Bobby's Book," (Seven Stories Press, 2012) is about the life of Bob Powers (aka Bengie), a skinny, asthmatic kid born into a large Irish family in Brooklyn in the early 1940s. Bob tells his graphic tales of growing up dirt poor to alcoholic parents; about the Catholic school that overlooked him; becoming a drug addict; marriages, kids; making millions from meth, hitting the bottom and climbing up clean to become a drugs counselor. 

Bruce Davidson met Bob and his gang in 1959 and began photographing them where they hung out making major trouble in South Brooklyn. Forty years after Davidson finished that project, he received a phone call from Powers, and ultimately, over the next ten years, Powers told his story to Bruce's wife, the adorable and brilliant Emily Haas Davidson. 

This book is an easy and extremely engaging read (I knocked it off in a couple of hours) even if the subject matter is sometimes tough going. Bob's redemption in his own eyes, and of those family members willing to forgive him, however, is entirely uplifting and in a perfect ending, his ability to help others escape their own entrapment is truly heartening.

Bruce Davidson is, well, Bruce Davidson.

Elyse Weingarten reviews the extremely impressive book Hunters, a photographic essay by David Chancellor (text by Bill Kouwenhoven. Published by the good people at Schilt, March 2013)

"If I am rabid, I am equal to what is outside." Paula Fox, Desperate Characters.



Photographer David Chancellor's book, Hunters, explores the psychology of the hunter, documenting the safaris that comprise the big game trophy industry in southern Africa. The book is divided into two parts, the first containing over a hundred full-page photographs set deep in the African wildlife; among them, portraits of hunters and huntresses posing with their prey, in the instant after the kill. It is this exigent moment - and the hope for what it could reveal - that propelled Chancellor to join hunting safaris with seasoned, lifelong hunters throughout his adopted country of South Africa, and Namibia and Zimbabwe. Each kill is a "trophy," and the rarer the species, the better. 

The question this book begs is "why?" Why have these hunters come all the way from their home countries to hunt animals they know to be dangerous and endangered, and come back again and again? It seems that the rush of the kill is what is being sold. The ultimate freedom is to kill, and with a hunting license, death becomes the ultimate commodity. The absence of blood on the photographed hunters, except for the occasional shirt or the ceremoniously blood-smeared face, is conspicuous. In this very lucrative business, death is sanitized.  

The second part of the book contains the breathtaking photo narrative, "Elephant Story," taken near a national park in Zimbabwe. Here, the thrill of big game hunting is replaced by the consumption of game meat by a local population. The twelve photographs of this series sequentially show villagers descend upon a dead elephant and skin it, collecting the flesh for meat until all that is left are skeletal remains and bloody chunks of unusable innards. In contrast to the hunters who visit and use the gaming industry as a spiritual or aesthetic gain, those who crowd around the elephant's body are just another part of the sustainability of the natural environment. They do not shy from the blood of the animal. Here, in this landscape, death is not tidy. -  Elyse Weingarten

It would be hard to be anything but moved by Joshua Lutz' latest project, "Hesitating Beauty," in which Lutz tries to convey the far-reaching impact that his mother's extreme mental illness had during and after her lifetime. 

"Blending family archives, interviews, and letters with his own photographic images, Lutz spins a seamless and strangely factual (yet unflinchingly fabricated) experience of a life and family consumed by mental illness. Rather than showing us what it looks like, "Hesitating Beauty" plays with our conceptions of reality to show us what it feels like to grapple with a family member's retreat from lucidity." ClampArt. 

I encourage you to listen to Joshua's moving interview with American Public Radio. Excellent reviews in American Suburb X and Mother Jones. 

'Hesitating Beauty' will be on exhibition at ClampArt from April 11th to May 16th, 2013. The book from Schilt Publishing is out now.

View the full-screen magazine photo feature.

© Louisa Marie Summer

This is the first book review from guest contributor Elyse Weingarten, a freelance writer living in New York. 

(I met Louisa Marie at an ASMP portfolio review two years ago, and I am thrilled to see this book as a result of a project that she had completed with such spirit. - Ed.)

All images © Louisa Marie Summer. Review by Elyse Weingarten.

News in from our friends at Snap Galleries in London. "In the gallery for the next four weeks, ending 13 October 2012, we'll be displaying a selection of double page spreads from I saw Nick Drake mounted on the walls. We are showing just over 50% of the book up on the walls, life-size, with each spread measuring a whopping 24 x 36 inches / 60 x 90 cm. When you come to the gallery, you get a sense of the scale of this incredible book."



"Keith Morris's archive is the single most important source of photographs of Nick Drake, with Keith photographing Nick Drake for all three of his albums over a two and a half year period from April 1969 to November 1971. Tragically, Keith died in a scuba diving accident in 2005 but his legacy lives on through his incredible archive of photographs." Read more over at Snap's website.

Man smoking in 14th Street Diner, NYC, 1974 © Harold Feinstein

Panopticon Gallery is proud to announce 'Harold Feinstein - A Retrospective' published by Nazraeli Press. Feel free to pre-order it for my birthday gift.

Feinstein was born in Coney Island, joined the Photo League at 17 years old, and is widely know for his work in New York, indeed helping to define the 'New York School'.

'Harold Feinstein, A Retrospective' is the first career-spanning monograph showcasing the brilliance of a small camera master of black-and-white photography. Feinstein began his career in photography in 1946. Within four short years, Edward Steichen, an early supporter, had purchased his work for the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and exhibited it frequently. Feinstein quickly became a prominent figure in the vanguard of the early New York City photography scene where he exhibited at Helen Gee's Limelight Gallery, was a designer for historic Blue Note Records and was a member of the NY Photo League. Feinstein is best known for his six-decade love affair with Coney Island, which has resulted in a collection unsurpassed by any other photographer. While his Coney Island work is much celebrated, Feinstein's breadth and exposure is far greater. His black-and-white portfolios include photo essays from the Korean War, documentary street work, nudes, landscapes, and still life. Feinstein's photographs have been exhibited in and are represented in the permanent collections of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, International Center of Photography, and the George Eastman House. "When your mouth drops open, click the shutter." - Harold Feinstein

GI in photo booth, Kilmer, 1952 © Harold Feinstein

In stores soon is this new infinitely-readable little book, 'Photographs Not Taken,' brought to you by the bright and brilliant team at Daylight. Author Will Steacy's short essays by photographers is a collection of personal stories about missed opportunities, mistakes, missteps and many other varied vignettes; some of them are glad that they hold the memory instead of a physical manifestation. "Diane Arbus would have done it" states Sylvia Plachy, in hindsight. Other short tales from Mary Ellen Mark, Roger Ballen, Amy Elkins, Mark Power, Jamel Shabazz, Tim Hetherington and dozens more.

Pre-order one now. Great value, great reading, relatable and moving.


"When we arrived at the hospital, it was time."



After the birth "We took our hurricane sideshow on the road."