#findthebumdog: A Homeless Man’s Development as a Street Photographer While Living on the Streets traces Bumdog Torres’ path from having a faint idea of a single project, to being a fully realized art curator, filmmaker, and photographer with multiple gallery shows, feature-length films, and a handful of photobooks to his credit. If, like me, you live a life of relative luxury, with the Masters Degree in Art History and Criticism and all the toys cameras and film and developing tanks and bulk loaders and photobooks that your little heart desires, and if you just look at all that stuff and feel self satisfied—again, I’m talking more about myself than anyone else—then do yourself a favor and maybe try to think more like a Bumdog.

Continue reading “Bumdog Torres – ‘#findthebumdog’”

Back in 2020, I saw something about @swerdnaekalb‘s zine on his Instagram. I had a brief Insta-chat with him and thought I arranged to purchase a signed copy from him, but I’m pretty sure he thought I dropped it. Oh well. During his interview with Simon Kossoff, Andrews mentioned his zine again, and I jumped right on it without the slightest hesitation.

Continue reading “Blake Andrews – ‘Need Clean Fill’”

I learned about Kossoff and his zines from the Blake Andrews’ interview last month (November 2021), and when I found Bump Books offering both of his zines for £10.00, I jumped at the chance.

Continue reading “Simon Kossoff – ‘Sonder’ and ‘Descendant’”

I’ve been on the Stanley/Barker email list for some time now… for many months, this posed a problem stemming from an undiagnosed compulsive disorder, whereby I bought pretty much every photobook or photobook-adjacent object that came to my attention. If it was just the Stanley/Barker list, it would be bad enough, but I’m also on the Mack and Aperture lists, and they put out far more books than do Stanley/Barker.

Anyway, sometime in early 2021 they announced the forthcoming Fingerprint, a collection of facsimile polaroids (the peel-apart type) from Jim Goldberg, made during his time working on Raised by Wolves. I somehow skipped the first round… maybe I waited too long and it sold out (it did so in 5 days). Then, in March, 2021, they announced a second printing and I jumped on it.

Continue reading “Jim Goldberg – ‘Fingerprint’”

In early 2021, Stanley/Barker announced Jim Goldberg‘s Fingerprint, a collection of polaroids from Goldberg’s Raised by Wolves project. At the time, as regards photobooks, I was in mindless ‘Buy It Now’ mode, but somehow missed out on the first printing. (They sold out in 5 days.) Stanley/Barker announced a second printing in March and I jumped on that one. When it arrived, I realized that I probably needed to know something about the project these images came from, for context and review purposes, and after some days repeatedly refreshing bookfinder, I found a beat up copy of Raised by Wolves from the Richmond Public Library for less than 1/4 of the going rate.

Continue reading “Jim Goldberg – ‘Raised by Wolves’”