Memory is a strange phenomenon. It takes shape and changes and erases itself. It’s the hypersensitive memories that stick in our minds – the moments that feel like they could have happened yesterday or years ago. In Clifford Prince King’s first book Orange Grove, memories serve as monuments from which the photographer surveys an important […]
It must be a common human experience to wake up from a nightmare to a reality that still feels like a nightmare. Instead of feeling relief, the dreamer experiences a dreaded surrealism. Melissa Catanese’s The Lottery is a book that feels nightmarish. It feels like a fever dream, one that sticks in your mind for […]
Cristian Ordóñez is a Chilean artist and photographer based in Toronto, Canada. C4 spoke with him about his work, current and upcoming projects, and his opinion on poutine. C4: You’ve made more than 600 photographs for your project Frequency. What was your process like making this work? How did the initial ideas come about, and […]
I recently drove over an hour through old dark country roads to deliver some money to a girl. She and I had only met once before, and since then she had revealed her heroin addiction to me. She was trying to kick the habit, and needed money for another type of drug that would help […]
Kevin Kunstadt is a photographer from New York who lives and works in Brooklyn. Since 2010 Kunstadt has produced several photographic projects in book form, on subjects as varied as: asphalt road resurfacing, gunpowder, scrap metal, and “sneakers, bricks, and politics.” These have been nominated for the Mack First Book Award, and shortlisted for the […]
Office Hours with Joe Johnson is a photobook that offers poignant commentary on the world of academia. Johnson, a photography professor at the University of Missouri, photographed his surroundings on campus during office hours – the pockets of time between classroom instruction spent meeting face to face with students, corresponding via email, and fulfilling administrative […]
Nat Ward’s book Big Throat is a powerful visual study of the existential realities that we as humans face. In the book, the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge in New Mexico serves as the structural framework for a photographic interpretation of existential questions. A steel deck arch bridge, and the tenth highest bridge in the United […]
Justine Kurland is an American photographer based in New York City. Her latest book, SCUMB Manifesto uses collage to break down the works that make up the male ‘canon’ of photography – quite literally. Kurland took books by male photographers from her own library, cut them up, and rearranged the pieces into individual collages. In […]
I grew up in a family that never hugged each other. We never said “I love you”. Punishment over praise – “think about what you’ve done”. The definition of a family is fluid nowadays. Family units morph – they expand, they collapse. I wonder why we never hugged each other. Tealia Ellis Ritter’s book The […]
Donavon Smallwood’s first book Languor contains portraits of Black Americans and landscapes from Central Park in New York City. This setting seems simple enough for a photobook. But there are layers to unfold in the work beyond the seemingly utopian world in which Smallwood’s subjects exist. In recent years, we have seen several books with […]