Every month, Phototrend invites you to discover the photo books that have left their mark on us. In this month of December 2024, here are 5 new works that we have selected for you.
This month, the creative research is particularly in the spotlight. With Why and how we create, Sean Tucker shares his personal thoughts on photography. Guy Delisle on the tumultuous journey of an unfairly overlooked pioneer, Eadweard Muybridge. L'AFP delivers a selection of his most beautiful photographs. Raphael Neal offers a disturbing look at Hollywood glamour. Finally, Mark McLennan offers a poetic look at the lands of the American West.
Happy reading.
In this work, Sean TuckerBritish photographer and director, offers an exploration of creative process. This book, at the crossroads of personal reflection and more universal principles, question the meaning that we give to our creations and the deep motivations that push us to create.
Through personal anecdotes, the author addresses essential themes: overcome doubtsconfront the critiquesfind his voiceand understand the role of theart in “the order of chaos” as Tucker explains. Each chapter acts as an invitation to reflect on the internal challenges that every creative person faces, while offering tracks to cultivate meaningful and authentic work.
Accessible and introspective, Why and how we create is a inspiring guide for artists, photographers and anyone looking to infuse meaning in their creative approach.
Why and how we create, Sean Tucker
Publisher: Eyrolles
€19.90, 288 pages, paperback format, 11 x 18 cm
Buy the book: Eyrolles / Fnac
Hollywood Nightmares
With Hollywood Nightmares, Raphael Neal explores a universe where Hollywood glamor dissolves into the darkness of broken dreams. This collection self-portraits was born from a deep disappointment facing the world of movie theaterwhere Neal evolved. His photos, carefully staged, reflect the disillusions and intimate fractures of an environment that combines fascination et cruelty.
The book is enriched by an interview with the author Alice Zeniterclose to the photographer, which takes the form of a conversation between her and the artist. Comparable to a testimony delivered on the couch of a psychoanalystshe reveals the genesis of this introspective work.
Born from his personal experience in cinema, this project highlights the tensions between desire for recognition and the emotional abuse of this universe. Each image evokes a mixture of cinematic elegance and of inner turmoilembodying a critical vision of Hollywood ideals. Hollywood Nightmares is much more than a book: it is a visual catharsisa tribute to souls in search of identity and a critical look at the Hollywood dream.
Hollywood Nightmares by Raphaël Neal
Publisher: Le bec en l’air
€32, 152 pages, bound format, 17 x 22 cm
Buy the book: Le bec en l’air / Fnac
For a fraction of a second
In the great history of photography and cinema, the names of Niépce, Daguerre or Lumière brothers are widely passed down to posterity. Alas, the one d’Eadweard Muybridge stayed much more in the shadows – particularly on this side of the Atlantic. However, this man's life was quite hectic (as the play on words on the cover of the book reminds us).
Because his work on decomposition of movement had a significantly impact on the still and moving image. So much so that his two works, Humans in Motion et Animals in Motionhave been reprinted for over 120 years. “To understand the mechanics, balance and weight of a movement, we haven't done better as a reference. It is surprising to note that these images from another time We still speak today“, explains Guy Delisle, author of this very nice cartoon published in Delcourt editions.
Already widely recognized for its Chronicles of Jerusalem or his comic book on North Korea, the author therefore puts a well-deserved spotlight on this colorful character, passionate and exciting. And draw up a vast 19th century fresco : the industrial revolution, technical progress, great fortunes.
For a fraction of a second, Guy Delisle
Publisher: Delcourt
€24.50, 208 pages, bound format, 20 x 26.5 cm
Buy the book: leslibraires.fr / Fnac
Focus, the view of AFP photographers
Like every year at this time, Agence France-Presse delivers a selection of best shots from its photographers. Such a open window over the past year, the work offers an exhaustive panorama of the planet in all its facets, as it was in 2024.
The photographs of American elections occupy a large place in the first part of the work. But also (and above all) the two great conflicts which are shaking the planet, Middle East as in Ukraine. The sharp gaze of the photographers makes these photos the reflection of an era. A point which is confirmed with the very beautiful images of the Paris Olympics 2024. Finally, a large place is always given to climate change and its consequences on populations.
If we note the obvious care taken by their author in each of these photographs, we also appreciate the editorial work which was carried out. Because the comment attached to the images (in French and English) sheds highly relevant light on these representative fragments of our world.
Focus, the view of AFP photographers
Publisher: La Découverte
€29.90, 200 pages, paperback format, 22.2 x 28.3 cm
Buy the book: leslibraires.fr / Fnac
No Fences
“In the United States, nothing seems as symbolically rich as the American West. » This is how we enter into No Fences of Mark McLennanhis latest book published by Stanley/Barker.
For three years, Mark McLennan surveyed the lands of the American West in search of a lifestyle that he thought lost. His camera and his artistic practice allowed him, precisely, to exceed the fences (fences) which give the title to his project, to go to the meeting places and people which perpetuate a form of traditiongoing against modernity.
It is with a great sobriety that Mark McLennan photographs landscapes and portraits, which complement each other with a certain poetry in the book. Her black and whitevery softpresents as many marked faces as large plains, forests, mountains or deserted factories. Although his series was made between 2020 and 2023we would think we were returning to a time gone byperhaps the one immortalized by post-war humanist photography or by western cinema.
The aesthetic adopted, all in nuances and an almost metallic gray, the subject and the approach of Mark McLennan make No Hayit's a very beautiful object bookwith undeniable photographic and editorial quality.
No fences, Mark McLennan
Editor: Stanley Barker
€67.95, 88 pages, bound format, 30 x 22 cm
Buy the book: Stanley Barker
