© Amani Willett. From A Parallel Road — © Amani Willett. From *A Parallel Road*

Amani Willett’s new book A Parallel Road challenges the glamorized narratives of the American road trip with experiences shaped by fear and violence.

The American road trip is a privileged photographic and literary rite of passage. Coming of age on the open road, it's largely a trope of carefree travel primarily enjoyed by white Americans. Photographers Robert Frank and Jacob Holdt, whose work pointed to racial, economic, and social inequality in the American landscape, did so with unfettered access – without fear of racist violence. And while Frank, who was Jewish, was likely in danger of antisemitic attacks, his ability to pass as white made his experience far less vulnerable.

A Parallel Road, published by Overlapse Books, offers an alternate history, traversing many Black Americans' experiences driving on American roads for the past 85 years. Based on conversations with friends and family about their histories, he pairs archival illustrations, maps, and vernacular images with his own photographs to present a haunting picture that raises new questions with every page. As the United States continues to see state-sanctioned violence against people of color on the road, A Parallel Road asks how long it will remain an expanse of terror.

I spoke with Willett to learn more about his experience, and to dive deeper into the process behind making the book.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Amani Willett

PostedJanuary 11, 2021

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesPhotobooks, Artists, Art News

TagsAmani Willett, A Parallel Road, Driving while Black in the United States, Green Book, Overlapse Books, photobooks, photography and race in America, Roy DeCarava

June T. Sanders speaks with Kelsey Sucena on Paralytic States: Sucena’s collection of essays and photographs about coming into themself as a trans*non-binary person in post-2016 America.

Kelsey Sucena is a trans*/nonbinary photographer, writer, and park ranger whose work rests at the intersection of photography and text. Their most recent work is a multi-disciplinary publication featuring writings and photographs made across the country in the wake of the 2016 election.

Kelsey’s work has an abject honesty and vulnerability to it. It is in some parts a nod and a contribution to auto theory and its champions like T Flesichmann & Mackenzie Wark. In others, a messy swim through the landscape of gender, transness, capitalism, and the American experience.

Paralytic States is far more than a housing for recent work. It is itself a force; a towering newspaper that stretches the possibility of image and text where the two mediums don’t just support each other but complicate each other’s narratives. Their process and insight puts them in the camp of artists who espouse the power of urgent, radical, and experimental publishing. And to me, mark a new lineage of poetics in image-making.

But beyond all that, it is a reminder. To witness - to hold - and to care. In their own words: “I am here to say that we are drowning because we have yet to read the waves.”

June T. Sanders in conversation with Kelsey Sucena

PostedDecember 22, 2020

AuthorJune T. Sanders

CategoriesArtists, Photobooks

TagsKelsey Sucena, Road Trip Photography, American Landscape Photography, June T. Sanders, post-Trump photography, 2020 photobooks, 2020 photography zines

Courtesy of the collection of Robert E. Jackson

A new photobook pairs vintage watermarked “proof” photographs with prose to create stories of anonymous people.

What happens to the memories behind anonymous, discarded photos? What can we know about a person when all we have is a snapshot - discovered in an old shoebox, in a bin at some vintage store, or an archive some stranger is hocking on Ebay? What stories do we create in our minds to color the photos we find? In the case of Proof, published by emerging photobook imprint Sleeper Studio, sequencing such anonymous photographs with literary fiction can be an opportunity to provide new meaning.

Proof is a selection of vernacular proof photos from the collection of Robert E. Jackson, curated by publisher, photographer, and fellow vernacular-obsessor Ben Alper. On its own, it’s a bizarre testimonial to pre-Photoshop retouching. A nod to historical obsessions with fantasies of beauty and perfection. Red lines stretch across faces, cutting them up, scrutinizing, and suggesting “improvement.” Instructions for removing wrinkles. An opportunity to take home a memento of a major life event – a wedding or a graduation. Watermarks assuring a sale.

As images alone, Proof shows the power of images to deceive. But there’s more. The images are accompanied by texts by Edith Fikes - narrative lists and long-form tales that create new fictions for these images. Captions like: “I had my first auto accident when I wasn’t wearing my glasses. I was driving my father’s new car” and “Connie and Dean’s wedding, 1950. (Dean married Constanza and she changed her name to Connie.)” create a surreal historical memoir. It’s nostalgic but we’re not sure what for, a narrative that is as equally open-ended as it is specific.

I contacted Fikes, Alper, and Jackson to learn more about their process and ideas.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Edith Fikes, Ben Alper, and Robert E. Jackson

PostedDecember 16, 2020

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesPhotobooks

TagsProof photographs, Sleeper Studio, Robert E. Jackson, vernacular photography, best photobooks of 2020, snapshot photography, word and image, Edith Fikes, Ben Alper, interviews with photography collectors

Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America © iO Tillet Wright — *Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America* © iO Tillet Wright

Roula Seikaly speaks with iO Tillet Wright about Self Evident Truths, his ten-year project (and now photography book) of 10,000+ humanizing portraits documenting people in the USA that identify as ANYTHING OTHER than 100% straight.

I was champagne-drunk while listening to United States President-elect Joseph R. Biden formally address the nation on November 7th. It was also my birthday, and there was much to celebrate. When I heard him include trans and queer Americans in a long list of people to whom he owes this victory, as though he was naming family members, I cried. I thought of my transgender wife and all of our friends in queer and other marginalized communities for whom the previous four years particularly have been terrifyingly fraught, and how it may be slightly easier to breathe now.

With that in mind, it’s a pleasure to introduce this interview with photographer iO Tillet-Wright. In 2010, Tillet-Wright embarked on a nationwide project to photograph people who are generally lumped into the category “LGBTQIA++,” which the photographer/activist rightly calls out for how it generalizes the otherwise glorious variations within queer communities.

10 years and 10,000 portraits later, the project Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America celebrates individuality that is barely contained within the photographic frame and holds immeasurable possibilities beyond a clumsy acronym. Published by Prestel this October, the 544-page book is monumental for its size, scope, and content - “10,000 faces of survival, charisma, and charm” - alike.

Roula Seikaly in conversation with iO Tillet-Wright

PostedNovember 12, 2020

AuthorRoula Seikaly

CategoriesArt News, Artists, Galleries, Photobooks

TagsiO Tillet-Wright, Roula Seikaly, New Photography, Self Evident Truths, photobooks, queer identity and photography, empathetic portraiture, Contemporary Portraiture

Photo Editor Gabriel Sanchez and Photographer Steven Eichner at their Long Beach, NY studio, 2019

Humble speaks with Gabriel Sanchez about his inspiring career and the story behind editing legendary 1990s NYC nightlife photographer Steve Eichner's new book In The Limelight

Gabriel Sanchez is one of today’s most inspiring photo editors. After writing for Aperture and Artforum ( that’s is EARLY work!) he carved a following and niche developing thousands of stories as Buzzfeed’s Features photo editor. Sanchez recently took a job at the New York Times assigning a range of photo essays and stories, working closely with photographers he'd previously admired from afar.

Amidst a career change and the pandemic, Sanchez edited In the Limelight: The Visual Ecstasy of NYC Nightlife in the 90s, a new photobook published by Prestel that celebrates the work of Steve Eichner, one of few photographers with insider access to photograph the wild and crazy 90s club scene in NYC. Oh, and he also became a dad.

I spoke with Sanchez to learn more about the project, his advice for up and coming photographers, and what it’s like having hands in so many reaches of photography.

Jon Feinstein in conversation with Gabriel Sanchez

PostedOctober 22, 2020

AuthorJon Feinstein

CategoriesArtists, Photobooks, Publications

TagsGabriel Sanchez, Steve Eichner, Into The Limelight book, 1990s party photography, NYC nightlife photography, Prestel Publishers, photo editors, advice for emerging photographers

The American History of Driving While Black

A Paralytic Journey Through America

The Poetic Fictions in Vernacular Proof Photographs

10 Years and 10,000 Portraits of Queer America

In The Limelight: BuzzFeed's Former Photo Editor on How to Make it as an Emerging Photographer, His New Role at The New York Times and a New Book on '90s Club Kids