Florian Van Roekel: How Terry Likes His Coffee

The ingenuity of Florian van Roekel’s How Terry Likes His Coffee begins with the cover. With any photobook of these dimensions, you’d expect the pictures to be laid out in landscape orientation, and this is true of van Roekel’s photos. But the cover label is set in portrait orientation. Looked at his way, the plain black cover looks like a premium legal-sized notebook, which is exactly what you get when you open the book in portrait: a series of lined pages reproduced from such a notebook, with a variety of doodles both ornate and simple. Van Roekel’s subject is the office, and these are the very kinds of doodles you’d make in the middle of a boring meeting where you can’t be bothered to take actual notes.

Uncharted Territory: Julie L. Sims

One in four adults will suffer from depression or other psychological disorders in their lifetime, yet these illnesses remain among our most misunderstood health issues. I have struggled with anxiety and depression, and am aware of how they have at times limited my accomplishments—not because I lack skills or talent, but because I am rendered unable to use the tools at my disposal. It is frustrating to be essentially crippled by your own brain, and it's difficult not to subscribe to the common misconception that I should be able to control this by sheer willpower or more positive thinking, and not to feel like a failure when I am unable to do so.

In Uncharted Territory I draw a parallel between these events and the experience of a natural disaster, when the environment becomes inhospitable beyond our control.

Amirali Ghasemi

In the series Tehran Remixed Amirali Ghasemi shows young urban Iranians socializing, their faces and other areas of exposed skin blanked out to protect their identities. The social activities depicted seem as though they could be happening in any city around the world. Yet the fact that the identities of the participants in these seemingly ordinary acts must be so starkly concealed underscores how specific the situation is to Iran.

Well, hello again! Krakow Photomonth: Alias

I've been on a blogging hiatus, but now that I am back in the teaching mode, it's easy for me to research and share. My favorite photography duo is at it again:

The incandescent female nudes featured in today's slideshow are currently on view at Krakow's Stained Glass Museum as part of new exhibition Alias. Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin are this year's curators for Krakow's Photomonth, Poland's largest visual arts event, and their theme is the artistic alter-ego.