Photobooks, zines, reviewed, etc...

Unknown Land - Louis Porter and Downcasting - Beau Brashares

I recently received these two new books from Doubleplusgood Books, which you may remember as being Stuart Woodman’s publishing enterprise that sprang into life with the publication of his first book - Now We Are 30. As this had resonated particularly strongly with me (thanks to the combined factors of me turning 30 and my love of Polaroids), I was keen to see what would happen when Stuart published someone else’s work.

In Unknown Land, Louis takes us on a tour of the decay and cracks in the seemingly spotless face of urban Australian life. Using the harsh sunlight to great effect, his ability to spot small but significant details, combine several of these into one great photo, and his immaculate use of colour make this book very rewarding to look through.

In Downcasting, Beau abstains from the use of colour entirely to take us on a rather magical tour of New York in which the traditional tourist views of the attractions are replaced with small moments where life and light intersect to great effect. The use of light and shadow in this book really is incredible - see the photo labelled “757” for example. Beau’s view of New York is infinitely more beautiful than many posed/formal photographs of the city, and yet each scene looks like it was simply stumbled upon by accident.

There are similarities between these two titles (the labelling of photos with the location being one obvious example) and the two books compliment each other well. Based on these two it looks like we have a lot to look forward to from Doubleplusgood Books.