The drug of choice for most of the world in the 19th century was Opium. The Western powers cultivated it, created demand for it in the East and then went to war to suppress it leaving a trail of carnage and opium addicts in their wake. Maggs Bros. Ltd. of London is currently offering what it believes is "the finest collection on the subject" ever assembled. The Santo Domingo Opium Collection is comprised of over 3,000 items, gathered over decades of collecting. The collection contains extensive historical documentation as well as "a huge collection of objects, including material of the highest quality and the most...
All Along the Watch Tower: The First Jehova’s Witnesses
Portraits of Charles Taze Russell (1852-1916), founder of the SocietyThey first called themselves the Zion's Watch Tower Tract Society and they were the earliest incarnation of what are now known as the Jehova's Witnesses.Portrait taken at the 1893 Watch Tower Convention in Chicago (the first major convention) which includes 76 members of the SocietyJust like today's door-knocking Jehova's Witnesses their main purpose was in the publication and distribution of religious tracts. Today they remain a major publisher in the field, printing more than 43 million issues of their various publications a month, totaling over 1 billion annually!These images are from a...
A Book Returns to Nature
Day 68 with snowThe idea is simple enough, place a book outside and document its decomposition. Tim Holt chose Michael Cunningham's A Home at the End of the World as his subject and left the book outside "to face the 'elements' and picture it's return to nature."Being only 3 months into the project I trust we can expect some more amazing images down the road.Day 51Day 54Day 35 "a fox has taken an interest"Day 21Day 14Day 7Follow the decomposition at Tim Holt's the book - a set on Flickr
DIY: Print-On-Demand and the Rise of the Photobook
Much like the changes to the book trade that took place with the advent of online bookselling; the photobook world has exploded with the introduction of POD technology. In both cases technology has greatly reduced the barriers to entry and opened up the floodgates, which in turn has redefined the trade.Desiree Edkins (American, born 1974). Offset lithography; 16.9 x 17.1 cm (closed), 2009. Courtesy of the artistNedejda, from Grodekovo series, 2009 (featured in Why Was I Born in Russia). Yury Toroptsov (Russian, b. 1974). Digital offset printing; 19.69 x 24.77 cm. Courtesy of the artist. Copyright © 2010–2011From what was a...
The Return of Mother Nature: The Miniature World of Lori Nix
Circulation Desk, 2012Lori Nix things big and works small. Her project "The City", which began in 2005, seeks to recreate in miniature everyday urban spaces in a post apocalyptic world. The people are gone and what remains are these deteriorating spaces and their ever-changing relationship with the natural world. Nix says:I have imagined a city of our future, where something either natural or as the result of mankind, has emptied the city of it's human inhabitants. Art museums, Broadway theaters, laundromats and bars no longer function. The walls are deteriorating, the ceilings are falling in, the structures barely stand, yet Mother Nature is slowly...