The first issue of Deep Sleep, a new online photo-mag from the UK, has just been launched. It's a web-only publication and will be "issued" 4 times a year, with each issue on a different theme, the first being 'Invisible'. I like the fact that they are trying to take a strong editorial line and the mag seems to be a real labour of love (and hate?). I think there is more and more potential for this kind of independent online mag. In my view they will never replace print, but they can be a great platform for emerging photographers to show their work easily and globally. Jim Casper's Lensculture is another great example of the genre.
Review: Shigeichi Nagano, Hong Kong Reminiscence 1958
I have just started a series of reviews of recent Japanese photobooks for the great online photography magazine, lensculture. The first review is of Shigeichi Nagano's latest, Hong Kong Reminiscence 1958 (Tokyo: Sokyu-sha, 2009). You can read the review here.
Update: It seems like the guys at Japan Exposures picked up on my review. If you want to get a copy of the book (they have signed copies too), their site is a good bet.
Alexei Riboud @ Pascaline Mulliez
Last night I made two discoveries within the Parisian photography world. A friend tipped me off to a vernissage around the corner from my place, so there really was no excuse not to take the five minute detour. Alexei Riboud, the son of the French photographer Marc Riboud, was showing his Durban Transit series at the new Pascaline Mulliez gallery. I found that the images got lost between a sense of the photographer stalking his subject and a certain confusion, as Riboud plays with scale and perspective, cutting out the horizon and giving those images a certain rushed, raw edge. Although his large colour prints do convey a certain insomniac restlestness amidst the eerie hues of the shipyard lights, unfortunately they made less of an impression than the space itself which is in the Cité Griset, a highly unusual block of vast artist studios that feels a lot more like New York's Chelsea than it does Paris. I look forward to seeing what is next in store here.