Photobooks, zines, reviewed, etc...

Every issue of Foam Magazine further cements the feeling I have that this is the best photography magazine currently being published.

The theme for this issue - Traces - offers a nod to the transient nature of life being captured through the permanence of photography. But how permanent is a medium in which millions upload their digital images to sites such as Facebook, only for those images to be lost forever when the site finally collapses. Couldn’t happen? Look at Geocities and the frantic scramble to salvage content before the titanic network of sites finally sank.

This time, my favourite portfolio comes from Anni Leppälä, in whose images all trace of identity has been removed, obscured, or simply scrubbed away. Another welcome edition this issue is a separate mini-magazine exploring the future of photography with a wonderful mini-essay by my favourite, Alec Soth. 

And finally, of particular significance to this site is the collection of book reviews, which I shall now sit down to savour thoroughly.

A note of apology to Foam Magazine - my copy only arrived this week, otherwise I would have been able to write about the issue much earlier. This was probably due to the Christmas post in the UK.