C4 Journal

09/10/2022

Increasingly photobook publishers are offering free PDFs of their books online, though was one of the first to do so -- much of their catalogue is available on a name-your-price basis over on their website. There's work by e.g. Daisuke Yokota, .abenavoli and .vandenberghe . Head over to their site and have a look.

23/09/2022

Something I struggle with running C4 is how, were it not for press copies, the generosity of fellow photographers, and book swaps, I really wouldn't be able to afford many of the books that I write about. I also struggled a lot as a photographer myself with how it seems like this everything has to be a capital P Project that is definitively "about" something. Many years ago I was selected to have one of my pictures in Der Greif (this isn't a brag -- there's easily 100 artists in this magazine). I kept my eye on them ever since, and it's kind of struck me recently just how fun it is to look through these actually affordable, really well-printed & curated magazines. It's so much more enjoyable to just appreciate a set of stand out images in much the same way that the Photographer of the Year books of yore used to be so effective -- when almost every image is a standout image, the book as a whole can grab your eye on every page. I'm not saying aboutness is bad any more than I'm saying affordability is something the photographers and publishers we talk with every day can really do much about, but I'm going to try and look at some of the great books + zines that have been published and which are now pretty accessible 2nd hand, as well as the new release that is often still great, but which might be when indulged too regularly an imprudent purchase.

16/09/2022

"It becomes clear why he came to this bridge – its steady deck serves as a viewpoint from which he can contemplate a fragile and transitional moment in his life – making sense of what it means to become a father"

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…

10/09/2022

Doris A. Derby was, by all accounts, a formidable person. Her credentials include becoming a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at sixteen…

10/09/2022

As a foreigner in the UK I get asked a lot where home is, how often I go home, whether I miss home. I often ask myself the first question too. With every passing year, home becomes more ambiguous…

09/09/2022

‘Doris Derby: A Civil Rights Journey’ – this new monograph by Mack is an account of Derby’s extensive involvement with the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Karin Bareman’s review takes a detailed look at the book – where it succeeds, and where it fails. A must-read, up now on the site – link in bio.

05/09/2022

This week, Joseph Glover writes on his PC's desktop background: Elliott Erwitt's 'Fontainebleau Hotel' -- link in bio!

https://c4journal.com/glover-elliot-erwitt/

03/09/2022

"These walls must have a ceiling, I argue to myself, but there is something here, within the image, which makes that impossible. I am constantly pivoting my gaze toward the far corner of the room" -- Joseph Glover writes on a single image: Elliott Erwitt’s 'Fontainebleau Hotel'.

When I hid as a child in a game of ‘hide-and-seek’, I often hid my eyes, thinking this act would cloak me from the vision of others. As I’ve gone through my life, I’ve revisited this moment on…

13/08/2022

Curious about the colonial history of palm tree iconography? Have a read of this interview with Bruno V. Roels!

Recently, the artist Bruno Roels has been making short runs of postcards, tear-off flyers and silkscreens, and sending them out to people on Instagram. Known for his framed grids of tea-toned darkroom…

12/08/2022

Our colleague recently took a trip over to Japan, exhibiting at Higashikawa Bunka Gallery and giving talks at after winning the 38th Higashikawa Award. Here are a few pics from her visit!

08/08/2022

Common words like “narrative” or “institution” are strangely hard to translate... “curator” was only introduced to Vietnam about 20 years ago 一 read Ha, Eugenie & Callum's roundup chat about our collaboration MATCAxC4, over on our site now!

25/05/2022

"Many of we British, particularly those of us in the countryside, adorn our homes with representations of wildlife and nature’s great designs — Yet it is precisely this spiritual resource whose presence has been diminished by human activity."

Every single creature in Richard and Cherry Keartons' photographic archive is dead. Many of their kind living today are vulnerable, if not endangered. Oft-credited as the original nature photographers…