me studio

…we first came to wintry Moscow in 2001 to put our Western fingers on the pulse of Russian Cosmonautics. Within two weeks the Mir Space Station, the last vestige of a purely Soviet/Russian manned space program, would plummet back to Earth after fifteen years of service. But shortly after this end there was another date that would represent the giddy beginning: April 12th would be the 40th anniversary of the historic 108-minute orbit of the Earth that made Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) the first man in space…

‘road to gagarin’ is the title of an exhibition and a new book (currently in production) documenting a personal project by local photographer rené nuijens & companion steve korver

…as if he had accidentally opened the wrong door – this was how Johnson lived his life…

three years in the planning since i first heard about the project: the new book about the life of the cryptical alter-ego of photographer daan brand, which was launched last week

daan was kind enough to give me a copy and beautiful it is too, the book designed by ‘jamie mitchell’ has been created in the look & feel of a moleskine sketchbook with ruled pages, odd colour inserts and a random feel to the whole, which works very well, johnson proved himself to be typically cryptical during the book launch, leaving a video message instead of coming along in person, just who is he?

the life of fourteen year old ‘annalisa durante’ her private diary and how she came to be shot to death on a street in naples in 2004 form the backdrop for a new publication ‘gomorrah girl’ by documentary photographer valerio spada, the book, with a soft cover, varied paper sorts and a staggered binding method using short insert pages was designed by talented book designer syb and has happily just been delivered to my studio this week

the editorial choices made, use of various stock, non-intrusive typography and short pages are all trademarks of his own particular style, the short pages have in fact been used repeatedly in his last few photo books, a trick which in a lesser designers’ hands could rapidly become repetitive and forced

syb however, seems to be able to apply the effect in a relevant and fresh manner for each new document, the whole feels very real intimate and contributes in a covincing fashion to the content of the images and the power of the story being told, not an easy task