Stephanie G. Mathis This year, the world of photography left a lasting impression on us with a wide range of stunning books. These visual narratives took us to different cultures, captured the essence of moments, and revealed the extraordinary in everyday life.
Lola Flash’s Traveling with My Ancestors is one of the most notable releases of this year. It offers a touching exploration of humanity and embraces its rich diversity. Its pages are a testament to the power of visual storytelling, with its vibrant colors and intimate images. Eugene Richards’s This Brief Life reminisces fifty years of social document photography. It allows the viewer to travel back in time. The book’s beautiful illustrations beautifully illustrate the transient nature of life. Keith Carter’s monochromatic masterpiece Ghostlight uses stark contrasts in order to convey profound emotion. The play of light and shade within the frames is like a silent poem, inviting readers into quiet narratives that are embedded in each photo.
These photo books represent the diversity and artistry of photography as we close out this chapter. These books are a visual journey through the stories of the global community. As we look forward to the next year’s work, they will leave a lasting legacy on the ever-evolving visual arts tapestry.
Lola Flash, Believable – Traveling with My Ancestors
The long-awaited first book by New York City photographer and LGBTQIA+ advocate Lola Flash is a stunning collection of portraits embracing people of all ages and genders. It also includes images of individuals from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and orientations. Flash brings out their subjects’ beauty and makes sure that they are seen. In the introduction to this book, Renee Mussai writes, “Queerness in Flash’s Multiverse is bathed by color and imbued love: infinitely generous, open, and loving.”
Traveling with My Ancestors spans four decades of Flash’s work. “It’s my entire life in there,” the pair said at a recent talk at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. Flash began with his “Cross Color” series that documented queer Black lives as an ACT UP during the AIDS Crisis. Flash created a world of saturated colors by printing the images on negative paper. For example, blue is published as red. Flash then released its “LEGENDS series, which featured portraits of LGBTQ+ people who were able to live their lives as they wanted despite societal norms and homophobia. This set an example for future generations. The series “Salt,” which features women who are over 70 years old and still make a difference in society, is viewed as a collection of heroes by the photographer. Believable extends to Flash’s Afrofuturist series “The Vision,” which explores the oppression that people of color have faced in the past, present, and future through an orange jumpsuit-clad avatar.
Flash, looking back at the career of these artists, observes “a beautiful cohesion of powerful theme.” They told Smithsonian: “As someone who grew in a world with very few LGBTQ+ visual resources growing up, I’m grateful to be a part of this necessary change towards fairness and inclusivity.” –Jeff Campagna
In This Brief Life By Eugene Richards
In his new book This Brief Life, Eugene Richards showcases a majority of his previously unseen social documentary photographs. Richards, at his son Sam’s suggestion, posted his photos to Instagram before the idea for the new book came about. This was something he avoided in the past. Richards told the Smithsonian that the Instagram experience was a revelation. Viewers wanted to learn more about my subjects and were amazed at their diversity. From intimate hospital scenes showing births and injuries to the harsh farming landscapes of South Dakota’s Gann Valley, the experiences are diverse. Richards says, “in ,most cases I was moved by an emotional reaction when choosing the photos in this book.” Donny Bajohr
Remember Me By Preston Gannaway
The book “Remember Me” by San Francisco-based Preston Gannaway has been in development for 17 years. This beautiful and meditative piece is centered around themes of loss, love, memory, and the inevitable passing of time. Gannaway was a photojournalist for the Concord Monitor, New Hampshire, in 2006 when she began to work on a story involving the St. Pierres, whose mother Carolynne was dying from liver cancer. Gannaway became close with the St. Pierre family, and her photographs led to five articles in the newspaper as well as a Pulitzer Prize. She returned a few years later to photograph E.J.’s youngest brother, who was only four when his mother passed away.
Preston told Smithsonian that there was a looming concern: Would E.J. still remember Carolynne? “How would her presence echo through his life when she is gone?” reflects me and includes photos from Gannaway’s time with the Gannaway family, documenting E.J.’s gradual maturation. These photographs preserve important memories. EJ, a senior at the University of New Hampshire, told the Concord Monitor this year, “Preston has always been there. I don’t remember a time when she wasn’t here.” “She has always been close to me as if we were family.”
Crossed Wires by Ed Templeton
Wired, the work of artist, photographer, and former professional Ed Templeton, is an insider look at the subculture that is skateboarding. It combines a personal memoir with documentation of DIY, punk, and sport in the 1990s through the early 2000s. Templeton’s photographs are not only of skateboarders performing seemingly impossible tricks but also of the quieter moments that occur behind the scenes. For example, his photograph of someone strumming their guitar in a room in a hotel and his collages made of Polaroid photos of people he met while touring the United States for skateboarding. “I wanted to create a book of photography for fans. I knew that the skate community would love it. Templeton says in an interview that he needed to avoid alienating the art world.
Shark: portraits by Mike Coots
A tiger shark bit his lower right leg, clamping down and shaking him violently. The 18-year-old Surfer Mike Coots did not see it coming. The tiger shark bit the lower right portion of Mike Coots, clamping it down and shaking him violently. It only let go when he punched the shark in its head. Coots made it back to shore, but his leg had been removed. Coots told Surfer that he felt no pain at all. It happened so fast. The attack must have been under ten seconds.
Coots, despite his difficult circumstances, didn’t stop doing what he loved. He learned to surf with a prosthetic leg. The shark attack survivor, who brought a unique credibility into conversations, became an advocate for shark conservation. Coots was instrumental in Hawaii’s 2010 ban on the sale and possession of shark fins. He even spoke at the United Nations and the U.S. Capitol. Coots began to take photographs during his recovery. This hobby has now become his career. These photographs depict the sea and how humans interact with it.
Coots’s new photo book, Shark: Portraits, shows his striking images. These include tiger sharks and great whites as well as lemons, oceanic tips, and white tips in Hawaii, Mexico, Bahamas, Maldives, etc. He’s not afraid to dive up close with the “greatest muses on earth” by free diving or scuba-diving, sometimes without a cage. Coots told the Smithsonian that the first thing you notice when diving with sharks is their beauty. Some even have personalities. The goal of my photography is to portray sharks in an authentic, beautiful light.
Alice Wong, Painting Photographs
In her first monograph, Paint Photographs, Alice Wong uses her collection of found images to paint a picture. Wong adds color and life to vintage photos of strangers. She uses acrylic markers on a range of ideas, including an actress’s headshot, a couple giggling at a bar, postcards with horse riders, and old magazine cutouts. Some of the overpaintings feature dogs, landscapes, or close-ups of flowers. Wong’s colorful palette gives a new perspective to the familiar images of American life. Bruno DeCharme, a pioneering French collector of Art Brut, says in the book that she “invites us to an inner journey” and “creates a narrative of her own.”
Sneaker Freaker: The World’s Greatest Sneaker Collectors
The 7-pound anthology, which contains 752 pages of gorgeous photographs, features vintage footwear, skate shoes, and basketball high-tops. The glossary is a great resource for those who are new to the world of sneakers. It contains all the terminology you need to be a sneakerhead or a “footwear enthusiast with a wealth of knowledge about history, and likely to spend their money on brand-new sneakers.” It also includes a glossary for the uninitiated, with all the terms you’ll need to become a sneakerhead.
In the introduction of the book, Simon “Woody Wood,” the editor-in-chief of Sneaker Freaker magazine, tries to make the case that it’s not about quantity. “This isn’t just about accumulating hundreds, and sometimes thousands, pairs, although this is the natural progress.”
World’s Greatest Sneaker Collecting introduces the reader to a fascinating cast of characters, from Elliot Tebele and his incredible collection of game-worn Air Jordans to Lee Deville, who is obsessed with collecting every Asics Collaboration ever made. Julia Schneider is a German sneakerhead who loves Adidas high-tops. Her passion for this hobby has almost maxed out the shoe capacity in her apartment. She says, “When I pray before bed, I don’t pray for better health. I pray that I won’t be buried under a collapsing rack next to my bedroom.”
Ghostlight By Keith Carter
In his new book Ghostlight, American photographer Keith Carter talks about Southern wetlands: “I’m not trying to be melodramatic, but I’m fairly sure there are ghosts.” The more than 100 black-and-white photographs in this book would make me agree. Traversing swamps, marshes, bogs,
Horses a candy-colored acid trip book. The series was started by Irish photographer Gareth McConnell when he went on assignment for the New York Times’ Voyages’ issue in Skeidvellir – a town located about 50 miles from Reykjavik – to photograph the tiny Icelandic horses. He wanted to emphasize that the series was not a documentary, so he chose a psychedelic style. McConnell used a variety of photographic techniques to create highly saturated and dream-like images. He photographed his pony-sized and poofy-maned subject both indoors as well as outdoors, using colored gels, flashlights, and analog cameras. McConnell’s title is taken from the Edwin Muir poem” the Horses,” and the one line of text that appears in the book is also a quotation from the poem.
McConnell told the Smithsonian that he didn’t intend to impose a didactic reading. There is only one line. “Wow, this book has unicorns and My Little Ponies in a psychedelic style,” McConnell said. It can also be read more darkly, with the horse as a symbol for man’s will to impose on others and for their broken relationship with nature.
Still Life by Doan ly
Still, Life is an artistic celebration of the work of New York City-based photographer Doan Ly. Her floral arrangements are photographed in a playful, surprising way.
The book opens with a quotation from the artist, “I want you to be surprised.” I want to be surprised. I want to have a moment of quietness that is bigger than life. I want beauty to be shared, and I also want to bring joy. As you flip through still life, the beauty and charm are instant. The flowers posed are portraits that have a human quality of delight. Old Masters’ still-life paintings influenced Ly’s paintings. However, her use of color and light makes her work feel current. Ly finds inspiration in the people around her. Her driver, who was assisting her in a photoshoot, once joined the fun by posing with a flower bouquet draped down her back.
