‘Open’ is a set of 34 prints, made from 4×5 negatives exposed, in camera, in Palestine by Morgan Ashcom in 2009, then re-exposed to fluorescent light by Israeli border guards prior to development, housed in a recycled 4×5 negative box. Ashcom offered these as a sort of “Thank You” gift for donating to Human Supporters, which operates a summer camp for youth and offers dance and art classes, and various other workshops and programs for young people in Palestine.

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Rebecca Norris Webb‘s Night Calls hit my Best List in a prime spot, sort of, clocking in as the “Best New Book that I Haven’t Reviewed (Yet)…” Well, now’s as good a time as any, and Night Calls is a great one with which to sort of kick of the 2022 review season.

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Despite not looking at it until now (the first week of 2022), Deanna Templeton’s What She Said hit my 2021 Best list as the “best for remembering my adolescence.” Despite being roughly a decade younger than Templeton, and roughly a decade or two older than her subjects, despite being male, I recognize myself in almost every bit of the book and I ordered it within seconds of first learning about it.

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For Hafiz, Sabiha Çimen‘s spent a handful of years photographing young women and girls at a hifz school in Istanbul. For many viewers it may be eye opening, it may humanize or familiarize; for me, it’s all fairly normal: school uniforms are terribly common, and women, young or old, wearing hijab and modest clothing just is. Hafiz was Charcoal Book Club‘s photobook of the month for December, 2021.

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Jindřich Štreit‘s Village People: 1965-1990 presents Štreit’s work in various Czechoslovakian villages during the waning years of Communism. It was Charcoal Book Club’s photobook of the month for November, 2021.

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