These 11 Photobooks Will Transport You
This week marks $100M pledged to Publishing projects on Kickstarter, a landmark achievement for our busy community of bookmakers, zine publishers, translators, podcasters, and coloring book enthusiasts. In honor of the milestone, we’re rounding up some of the publishing highlights from the past seven years.
“To be good, photographs have to be full of the world.” Dorothea Lange
Each day, Kickstarter creators train their cameras on cultures around the globe. They offer an insider’s perspective on their own environments, or thoughtfully immerse themselves in the routines and rituals of others.
These eleven photobooks are full of the world. They transport us to remote, endangered, or bygone cultures and present vivid portraits of people, places, and traditions we may otherwise never experience. We are all a little more world-wise for their existence.
Hutterite
Kelly Hofer picked up a point-and-shoot camera as a teenager and began to document the Hutterite community in Manitoba, Canada, in which he was raised. He amassed hundreds of thousands of photos of life in the colony before leaving at nineteen to forge a career as a photographer, artist, and LGBT activist. His photobook will be a considered portrait of life inside these religious communities, where members of the colony work, eat, play, and socialize together. “In all of this togetherness, there’s a very unadulterated beauty,” Hofer says.
Hutterite is live on Kickstarter until September 5.
Steinholt: A Family History in Iceland
Through an evocative series of black-and-white photos, Christopher Taylor’s book will piece together interconnected moments from his wife’s family history in þórshöfn, a remote fishing community in northeastern Iceland. In telling one family’s story, Taylor aims to unspool a larger narrative about the power of memory, the natural beauty of Iceland, and the people who continue to inhabit þórshöfn’s rugged landscapes.
Steinholt is live on Kickstarter until September 4.
Kate Lycett: Lost Houses of the South Pennines
For the past two years, Kate Lycett has created lush paintings that reimagine derelict homes in the South Pennines, a region of moorland in Northern England. Hoping to uncover the lost stories behind these ruined abodes, she and her father began to research each home, uncovering photographs and drawings from archives and people’s personal collections. Lycett plans to tell those stories in a beautifully bound book of paintings and archival materials, accompanied by photographs of the remaining ruins to create an expressive juxtaposition of past and present.
Lost Houses of the South Pennines is live on Kickstarter until September 16.
Face to Faith: Mount Kailash, Tibet
It’s known as the “origin of the universe” in the Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, and Bon religions, yet few people ever make the trek to see it. The remote and sacred Mount Kailash in Tibet requires weeks of difficult, often treacherous travel for religious pilgrims seeking enlightenment. With his book of portraits and breathtaking landscapes, Samuel Zuder offers a rare glimpse at one of the most mysterious places on Earth, and tells the stories of those make the journey to worship there.
La Batea: Impressions of Gold in Colombia
Named after the wooden pan used by artisanal miners in Colombia to separate gold from the surrounding earth and rock, Stephen and Elizabeth Emma Ferry’s book documents the culture and craft of these artisans, and the challenges they now face from multinational mining companies. Colombia’s history is “intimately bound up with gold,” they say, in ways that contribute to “situations of violence, contamination, and exploitation, but also of devotion, craftsmanship, and anchored communities.” Through intimate photographs and research, they hope to thoughtfully illuminate these intertwining narratives.
The History and Culture of the Lai Tu Chin People
The tattoo-faced women in Dylan Goldby’s photographs are the last generation to bear the markings of Myanmar’s Lai Tu Chin tribe. The practice of tattooing young women’s faces, which was banned after the military seized control of the nation in the 1960s, was carried out as a coming of age ritual and was considered a symbol of feminine beauty. Goldby and his collaborators traveled to Myanmar to interview village elders and one hundred tattooed women for a book that will offer unprecedented insights into the culture and its disappearing rituals.
The Last Resort: The Strange Beauty of Soviet Sanatoriums
“Soviet architecture often conjures up images of monolithic building blocks, but the era’s sanatoriums are among the most diverse and experimental structures of that time,” says creator Maryam Omidi. Soviet workers would spend a week or two each year at these sanctuaries, she explains, which were “similar to modern-day spas but with a strong medical component.” Along with a team of Russian and European photographers, Omidi is traveling from the steppes of Kazakhstan to the wine-growing regions of Georgia to document Soviet-era sanatoriums still in use today and collect stories from individuals who frequent them.
Muay Thai
In 2014, sports photographer Steven Counts traveled through rural Thailand on a motorcycle, exploring the roots of the ancient martial art of Muay Thai. He covered more than 3,000 miles, visiting village after village in search of national champions and young rising stars. His photobook delves into the lifestyle and culture surrounding the sport, chronicling the boxers’ daily routines alongside their fierce bouts in the ring.
Occupied Pleasures
“We…need imagery that captures the poetry of everyday life, and not only the prose of strife. We need the fleeting wash of pleasure to color our memories in the interstices of devastation, ruination, and grief,” writes Dr. Laleh Kahili in her introduction to Occupied Pleasures. Showing the simple moments of joy and pleasure that can be found amid conflict and violence, the book is a testament to the strength and dignity of those living in occupied territories in Palestine. “Such ability to find pleasure highlights humanity, and such pleasures are also a form of creative resistance,” says creator Tanya Habjouqa.
The Armenian Diaspora Project
From drag racers in Los Angeles to seminarians in Jerusalem, altar boys in Addis Ababa to card-playing revolutionaries in Beirut, Scout Tufjankian traveled far and wide to tell the story of the Armenian diaspora. In 2015, to mark the centennial of the Armenian genocide, Tufjankian released this collection of vibrant photos and stories of survival to counter that narrative of victimhood. Her book assembles a richly diverse mosaic of experiences that speaks to the resilience of the Armenian people throughout the world.
Bicycle Portraits
Over two years and 6,000 kilometers, Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler created three photobooks dedicated to the small and insular bicycle culture of South Africa. With portraits, stories, and essays, the book is not only a celebration of cycling — it’s also an unexpected entry point for exploring political and social issues like the need for public space and infrastructure development and the persistent challenges of social inequality. Ultimately, the creators say, the book is a portrait of the nation itself, “revealing all manner of social, class, historical, and cultural nuances [we] never imagined.”
To see even more photobook projects from our creative community, browse our Publishing and Photography categories.
Written by Rebecca Hiscott, Kickstarter’s engagement specialist.
