PhotoBook Childhood | thinkingaboutphoto

PhotoBook Journal

I am always pleased to welcome back PhotoBook Journal with selections from editor Hans Hickerson and their team of Contributing Editors on books exploring ideas about Childhood. I encourage you to use the links to read the full versions of their thoughtful reviews.

The Johnny Chronicles by Joe Doherty

Review by Hans Hickerson

The Johnny Chronicles, An Anthology of Love and Absurdity, is a good reminder that one way to evaluate art is to look at how it communicates or offers consequential human experience. The Johnny Chronicles definitely does this. The book fits into the narrative / documentary photobook tradition and you can argue that it connects with viewers more directly and meaningfully than others that might be categorized as high art.

The Johnny Chronicles is a portrait of photographer Joe Doherty’s brother John, the youngest of 8 siblings, who was born with Down syndrome. In 66 photographs and extensive texts, mostly in the form of easy-to-read captions, Doherty tells the story of how John brought and kept his dysfunctional family together, especially after his parents died at a relatively young age. Woven into John’s personal story is the family story as well as background explaining how photographer Joe Doherty got started doing photography. Use this link to read the rest of the review, additional images and information

The Children's Melody by Eli Durst

Review by Hans Hickerson

To write or not to write, that is the question photographers ask when assembling their projects into books. What do you say to accompany your photographs? What needs to be said that the photographs do not already say? Will the viewer understand what you are doing if you do not include any text? You can’t expect people to have read the publisher’s press release; your book has to work as a self-contained package.

In the case of Eli Durst’s The Children’s Melody, besides the photographs you have the title and a couple of quotations about childhood, so you have to figure it out yourself. If you think about “children,” you gather from the photographs that they are American kids, school aged, from kindergarten through high school. The “melody” part comes from their performances, formal and informal, literal and figurative, and the situations you observe. Use this link to read the rest of the review, additional images and information

Filling in the Gaps by Marcus Gustafsson

Publisher: Kult Books, 2025

Review by Olga Bubich

Domestic violence, emotional neglect, parental mental illnesses and substance abuse are family conditions that might lead to childhood trauma, which, if left unprocessed, risks having a profound and lasting impact on a person’s emotional well-being and self-perception in adulthood. One of the ways of addressing trauma, whether it is of social or structural (historical) nature, has always been connected to artistic practice, which enables us to engage with painful experience through distance, symbolization, re-authoring, and agency restoration. The debut photobook Filling in the Gaps by Stockholm-based artist Marcus Gustafsson draws on precisely these strategies, presenting a deeply emotional visual narrative built around his rediscovery of and engagement with the family archive, seeking to achieve the aim articulated in the project’s title. Use this link to read the rest of the review, additional images and information

Sister Moon by Siri Kaur

Review by Hans Hickerson

How do you determine what a photobook means? Do you read the publisher’s press release and then look at the book? Or do you look at the book to see what’s there and ignore the PR? That’s what I usually do. I figure the book is the final authority, that if the author had wanted you to know something they would have – should have – included it in the book. Plus publishers make all kinds of claims in their efforts to promote their books.

When I look at photobooks, my approach sometimes gets me into situations where I can’t figure out what is supposed to be going on in the book, even after some visual due diligence. Let’s say, for example, that you are looking at a book of photos of people from a marginalized social group. Does this mean that the photos are about strength and resilience, identity and inclusion – or about something else totally different? How would you know? Photographs are mute and can signify anything. In the absence of written context you can read into them whatever you want. Use this link to read the rest of the review, additional images and information

Puking Rainbows, Past and Future by Sean and Tennbo Lotman

Review by Rudy Vega

Puking Rainbows, Past and Future is a captivating collaborative project by Sean Lotman and his son Tennbo, blending the boundaries between photobook and artist book. Encased in a cardboard slipcover adorned with Sharpie doodles and Instax prints—featuring individual portraits of the duo on the front and back—each copy is a unique edition, emphasizing its artistic essence. Measuring 4.25” x 6” with pages glued and stitched at the top, the book’s design playfully evokes the feel of a flipbook. While my reviews typically don’t delve deeply into design details, this project’s innovative and personal approach demands the extra attention to fully appreciate its creative vision.

At its core, Puking Rainbows is not just a collection of images but a testament to the creative dialogue between father and son, framed within the nostalgic immediacy of instant photography. This diaristic project, initiated when Tennbo was just five years old, captures fleeting moments of childhood and parenthood through a medium that itself embodies ephemerality... Use this link to read the rest of the review, additional images and information

Notebook on Time, by Richard Zybert

Publisher: Marginal Press, 1981

Review by Hans Hickerson

Good things come in small packages. Grenades come in small packages too, and you can compare Richard Zybert’s 1981 photobook Notebook on Time to a small explosive charge.

Notebook on Time is the story of Zybert coming to terms with his dysfunctional family and in particular with the legacy of his abusive, alcoholic father, and Zybert is brutally honest and disarming as he narrates the story in photographs and texts.

I acquired my copy of the book in the early 1980s, I can’t remember where, and I found it captivating and memorable, a highly successful example of book form. I am reviewing it here not only because it deserves attention but also because I think it offers an important lesson on value in art.

Notebook on Time is organized into four chapters. In Father/Son Self-Portrait Part One Zybert deals with the aftermath of his father’s death ... Use this link to read the rest of the review, additional images and information

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