The Harvey Milk Photo Center houses a collection of photobooks from Bay Area artists within the David Johnson Reference Library and invites artists and publishers from the Bay Area to submit their books for consideration.
The selected books are currently displayed in the David Johnson Reference Library at the Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco. In addition, the books will be featured on our social media and will go into the permanent collection at the Center. Five books will be selected per cycle and will be judged by a committee from the Center.
Photo Book Selections 2024
Alternative Voices
by Jeanne Hansen
About the Artist: Jeanne bought her first camera at ten with money earned from picking strawberries in Skagit Valley, Washington where she was born and raised. Trained for one year at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara she then transferred to the San Francisco Art Institute and in 1982 received a BFA in Photography. During the 1980’s she lived and worked in the Bay Area, contributed to the social and political movements of the day through her photography with work published in local magazines and neighborhood newspapers. Her more personal projects were exhibited in alternative galleries. They illustrated her mission to push against boundaries, explore the counterculture and express her own vision. In 1990 she returned to Skagit Valley, where as a single mother she raised her son. Through her photography, she explored her intimate relation to rural farm life, the surrounding environment, and the people who lived and worked there. She exhibited her work in galleries, museums, public spaces, and in private collections. She also contributed to the book and exhibition Harvesting the Light, which advocates for preservation of farmland in Skagit. During this time she worked at a photo lab in Bellingham, Washington and the Whatcom Museum of History and Art specializing in black and white printing. In 2013 she returned to San Francisco working on a multi-media project about the alternative art, music, and political scene during the punk heyday of the 1980’s.
About the book: When I moved to San Francisco in 1980 to continue with my education in photography, I immediately dove into the DIY scene that was happening all around me with my camera in hand. Photography was my way to connect and contribute, while I explored the intertwined communities of art, music and activism. You could say I took a walk on the Wild Side San Francisco’s extraordinary beauty and power. My 126 page book Alternative Voices offers 102 photographs and 16 interviews conducted by Jonah Raskin. Together they document the charged cultural and political scene of the underground that made S.F. a fertile center for poetry, art, Punk & New Wave music, performance and protest, all on the cusp of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The images, viewed through the lens of a young woman were informed by DIY Punk energy. They represent a unique time and place of inexpensive Mission District flats, old storefronts, dark basements and abandoned warehouses that were turned into art and music spaces where participants were free to roam and create. From all over the USA, we came together to cross social boundaries and express our discontent of Reagan’s America.
Artist’s Website: www.jeannemhansen.com
Your Instagram handle: @jeannehansen5
Insufficient Rendering
by Deana Collins
About the Artist: I am a photographer living in Oakland, California. I use an analog camera and shoot almost exclusively in black and white film. I am very interested in the entire process of making an image, from seeing a scene to printing it in the darkroom. I believe that photography has the ability to share stories that can inspire and make people feel like they are not alone. In the past 5 years, I have directed my photography toward my own life, making projects about my experiences, making art my savior.
About the book: Insufficient rendering occurs when there is an absence of emulsion coating on the film. When this happens, the image isn’t complete in print. I use Insufficient Rendering as a metaphor for my brother’s life. In 2007, my brother died. It was unexpected and devastating. I was living in Brooklyn at the time, and he was in California. He was young, and his life was rendered incomplete. I have flown back to Manhattan many times to take photographs of where I was standing when I got the phone call that day, searching for a way to express how it all felt. The images and words in this book are the closest I have come. This 20-page book is 4 inches x 5 inches in size and holds 11 photographs. I printed the photographs in a polaroid style for nostalgia’s sake, to evoke memory of the past. I used a typewriter to type onto Vellum and then glued the captions onto the pages. The dust cover is held to the text block by magnets at the flaps on the front and back. This design allows the viewer to remove the cover to display the accordion nature of the book, placing the scene, and therefore my journey, before the viewer in its entirety. This book was handmade, and all the photographs were printed in my darkroom. This is a first printing, limited edition.
Artist’s Website: www.deanacollins.com
The Red Purse
by Jacque Rupp
About the Artist: As the daughter of a psychologist, I’m deeply curious about the human condition. In life and in art, I strive to connect, to understand, to find common ground. My images are uniquely personal; I’m drawn to intimacy, intensity, authenticity. Having experienced losses early in life, I gravitate toward themes of longing and solitude but always with hints of hope and rebirth not far away. I am interested in themes around female representation and how they have evolved over time. Through my art, I both ask and consider answers to complex questions. With camera in hand, I engage with the world, ever present, and eager to capture the moments that give us all pause to reflect. I’m a storyteller. And with my lifelong love for the moving image, I often create photographs with a cinematic flare.
About the book: “Early grief is a liminal time.” Megan Devine Shortly after he died, I bought a red purse. I knew I needed it, but I didn’t know why. For years the purse sat on my dresser, waiting for me to take up its call. The Red Purse tells a story of transition, of rebuilding. The project grew from a journey, my journey, of navigating through—and beyond– the darkness and uncertainty of young widowhood.
After my husband passed, I was overcome with grief, with fear, with sadness, but other emotions, confusing, even shameful emotions, soon struck: a rush of femininity, a burst of sexuality, an unexpected excitement. Alone with two young children, I struggled to absorb and understand these disparate, and, at times, unsettling feelings. He had been ill for a long time, and I craved for a sense of normalcy, a sense of wholeness. I wanted what I had lost. I had trouble thinking of myself as a widow, unwilling, at first, to join that club. I did not want to raise my boys under a shroud of loss. I did not want people to pity me. I slowly, cautiously, stepped outside of my grief. Rejoining the world did not come easy. When I had fun, guilt ate away at me; when things did not go well, shame prevailed. I alternated between ups and downs, exhilaration, and embarrassment. Confusion reigned, for years. Gradually, I became bolder; I dared to experiment, trying out new roles, new personalities, new styles. I flirted; I dated; I risked. I felt, almost, like an actress in my own movie, sometimes a film noir—full of danger, drama, and suspense. The red purse stood as a daily reminder: despite the enormity of the tasks at hand, I needed to make room for femininity, for frivolity, for spontaneity. It gave me permission to experiment with who I would become, both real and imagined.
The Red Purse project is, in the end, not a tale of grief, but rather a toast to life, to redefining, to flourishing. The Red Purse, a fictionalized account of my story, is meant to inspire, to prompt conversation, to pay tribute to those who have lost, to those who have struggled, and to those who have evolved.
Artist’s Website: www.jacquerupp.com
Your Instagram handle: @jacquerupp
Occupied
by Iris Brito Stevens
About the Artist: I use photography as a way to see more deeply into the world for the purpose of making personal and intimate connections with people. I am drawn towards illuminating communities that are vulnerable because when people struggle with oppression, they are often rendered invisible. Seeing and witnessing are a form of justice, and a means of acknowledging the stories and lives of others. I am also interested in how we belong in the world, collectively and individually, and how we locate and interpret our belonging despite the impacts of default circumstances and conditioning, either by societal (cultural and political) or intergenerational (familial/ancestral) influences. As a social documentary photographer, my work is centered on seeing others and their circumstances with deeper than ordinary eyes, in service to the wholeness and truth of our individual and collective human experience, particularly at a time when there is so much divisiveness in the world.
About the book: “Occupied” is a photographic depiction of Palestinian life under the Israeli Occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank) through my eyes as an American social documentary photographer, while my daughter was living and working there for six years. My images reflect five separate visits with Palestinians living in refugee camps, working on their farmlands during olive planting and picking seasons, existing within daily life on the streets of Bethlehem, and at checkpoint crossings between the Separation Wall and Jerusalem. I was especially drawn to the often-contentious interactions Palestinians experienced with the military or with settlers at the intersection of Palestinian-owned farmland and settlements located on illegally annexed Palestinian land. In view of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip and the escalating violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, this work is particularly relevant today.
Artist’s Website: http://www.irisbritostevens.com
Instagram handle: @iriseyeswideopen
Gazing
by Kevin Flynn
About the Artist: Kevin Flynn is a photographer and visual artist who resides in Oakland, California. He attained the Bachelor of Arts Degree in Photography from the Aesthetic Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
About the book: Of all our senses, we primarily rely on eyesight for perceiving and comprehending the world. As a result, our culture has developed imagery to communicate with each other, distinct from our inherited facial and body cues and evolving later our verbal languages. Unfortunately, our images have moved beyond the point of saturation, creating visual and mental fatigue.
These photographs were created as a respite from over stimulation. They are meant to be viewed unfettered from the intellect and centered for contemplation and meditation.
Artist’s Website: www.kevinflynnphotographer.com
Photo Book Selections 2023
The Harvey Milk Photo Center is developing a collection of photo books from Bay Area artists within the David Johnson Reference Library. Here are the selections from the 2023 photo book open call.
Stow Lake: Images from a Man-made Lake by Mitsu Yoshikawa
About the Artist: Mitsu Yoshikawa was born in Japan. He studied photography under Peter Stackpole at Academy of Art College in San Francisco, and moved to New York City where he worked for Yomiuri Newspaper and as a freelance photographer. After several years, he accepted a nine-month assignment taking photographs in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka for airline travel magazines. Following that assignment, he returned to Tokyo, where he continued to work as a freelance photographer and expanded his experience to include photographing, editing and publishing yearbooks. He photographs nature and wilderness scenes of the San Francisco Bay Area with large format cameras and also started using digital photography recently.
About the book: When I look at landscapes closely, I see the myriad details and subjects that, together in the thousands, create the total landscape. Though often ignored, these small pieces, individually, convey strong messages—sometimes with greater intensity than the total. I try to find these strong messages hidden in the details and bring them to the surface, and to the notice of people. Each photograph contains thousands of bits of information, but the photographer has to create messages, through the images selected, to the audience. More importantly, each photographer has to create his or her own messages by choosing the best tools and equipment to capture the right momentum for the subject and message. Large format cameras are the best for me to use to capture the subjects and convey the messages I want to convey.
Artist’s Website: www.mitsuyoshikawa-image.com
Instagram handle: @mitsu.yoshikawa
‘Unfolding: Color of Life – Old Delhi’ by Laila Nahar
About the Artist: Laila Nahar is a lens-based artist in California, USA. She lived her life in stark cultural contrast, born and brought up in Bangladesh and eventually migrated to the US in her late 20’s for pursuing higher studies in Engineering. Laila recently retired from the high-tech industry after 24 years to devote full-time to the passion of her life as a photo and book artist.
Laila is primarily a self-taught photographer exploring belonging, memory, cultural and collective identity. Lately, she has become increasingly fascinated with hand-made photo book making.
Laila had solo exhibitions from the ‘Memories from Bangladesh’ series in Steps Gallery (Arizona) and Nelson Gallery (California). Photographs from this series are in permanent collections of ASU and UCDavis photography Museums.
About the book: Not every experience appears in my mind as a book, some does and for some I become the part of that story that can only be narrated in a book. As I walked the old city of Delhi it was life at its infinite wondrous variation. Each nook and each corner are at its unique existence, yet no one would exist in its glorious beauty without the rest. A story of one linked to another and none losing its identity. It is a spectacle of color, fragrance, sound and above all the depth of life. Nothing is orchestrated, yet all are sung from the invisible strings of a great tune. I get pulled and submerged into its comforting depth.
This is a book that symbolizes the unfolding, folding and linkage of life. A life that is vibrant without the pretense of ornamentation. It is a life of struggle, unadorned, and revealed; and it surrounds us, and it penetrates us. The book-form unfolds and depicts the color of life-waves. The juxtaposition of the photos and colors tries to bring the sense of vitality, and the structural element opens up an entry into a world of people, places and the many activities that make up life.
Artist’s Website: https://www.lailanahar.com/
Instagram handle: @naharlaila
Chas Chas by Luis Cobelo
About the Artist: Luis Cobelo Born in 1970 in Acarigua, Venezuela. Artist.
He grew up and became a photographer between Venezuela and Spain.
After a long and consolidated career as a photojournalist carrying out documentary projects in the Americas, Asia and Europe, which were published in magazines in Spain, Europe and Latin America, his work is currently based on art and the production of photobooks and exhibitions.
His focus is on fantasy, magical realism and Latin American popular culture, where he generates stories from his personal perspective, reflecting on the process of transforming the everyday into the unusual, from the tragic to funny and vice versa.
Inspired by literature, popular culture, cinema, poetry, myths and traditions (including lies and gossip) he relies on the use of different types of realities that could well be magic tricks (without being a real magician), to create parallel worlds tailored to his own expectations.
He is based in San Francisco (California)
About the book: “Chas Chas” is a magic word, a magic trip. It’s a personal tribute to the city of Buenos Aires, through a particular and poetic neighborhood called Parque Chas.The project is inspired by an Argentinian comic book series of the same name that Luis Cobelo read 32 years ago. The comic reveals, in several chapters, the adventures of a writer who was told that fantastic and extraordinary things happen there.
The reason that “out of the ordinary” things can take place is because the center of the neighborhood was architecturally constructed similar to a spider’s web or a labyrinth. So, that’s why they say that if you enter into that concentric form, you may never leave and magical things can happen to you. Many say that this is the reality and not what is out there. Essentially, in Parque Chas everything is possible.
Many years later, Luis decided to travel thousands of kilometers to see it for himself. But what really took him there was the desire to discover if the following saying which he heard about this mythical neighborhood was true: “Everything you ever lost in life, exists in Parque Chas”.
And yes, it does.
“Chas Chas” It reads like a graphic novel or a mystery story, with many layers of internal and external references. The flow of images conjures a smile-inducing dream logic that feels strangely rooted to the alternate reality of street life in this fantastic place.
All of this happens through Cobelo’s hallucinatory playful eyes, who move through the implausible stories a thousand times told that became real, only for those who want to believe. It is a snap, an intangible place where whoever and whatever was lost, will be found. Can be for everyone, except for those who want to know how magic tricks are done.
NOTE: in the exhibitions, this work includes the performance/presence of Pilar, Luis Cobelo’s sister.
Artist’s Website: www.luiscobelo.com
Instagram handle: @churrito and @chaschasluiscobelo
Diptychs by Jocelyn Liu
About the Artist: Jocelyn Lui’s photo practice focuses on documentary-style observations of chill views (or tranquil landscapes) and quiet, overlooked moments. She was introduced to film photography in high school and has been making images in her spare time ever since. Currently, her favorite camera is the Olympus OM-2n.
About the book: Diptychs is a photo zine that explores image sets of landscapes and portraits made primarily in the Bay Area. In it Lui plays with negative space, horizon lines and alignment to help complete the image sets.
Artist’s Website: https://www.jocelynlui.com
Instagram handle: @jocelyn_lui
Darkroom by Phyllis Christopher
About the Artist: Phyllis Christopher’s fearless and tender photographs fuse lesbian sex and queer protest against the backdrop of a city in flux. Relocating to San Francisco from her hometown Buffalo in the late-1980s, Christopher began to collaborate with her subjects to make images in which documentary and performance converge.
About the book: Dark Room brings together fifteen years of Christopher’s work, negotiating street, club, and studio, with camera in hand, to compose a portrait of a community simultaneously defining radical articulations of queer lesbian sexuality and defending its bodily autonomy in the face of right-wing politics, the AIDS crisis and urban gentrification. Reproducing photographs of startling intensity and sensuality alongside new writing by Susie Bright, Laura Guy, Michelle Tea and an interview with Shar Rednour, Dark Room is a heartfelt record of Christopher’s devotion to an analogue tradition, to the pleasures of photographs and the community that made them.
Artist’s Website: https://phyllischristopher.com/
Instagram handle: @phyllischristopher
Postcards from the Pandemic by Candice J. Jacobus
About the Artist: Wanderer, stroller, flâneuse. Photographer Candice J. Jacobus roams the world looking, noticing and making images of people, and the places they inhabit.
An observer of street life, whether in her home of San Francisco or in cities around the world, Candice searches out the byways and markets where locals carry on their public, or not so public, lives. Often, it’s not the individuals, but the doorway they may emerge from, or the corner that they may round that captures her eye. Sometimes a window beckons, what is happening within? Often it is the ghost of a being converging with time past and future in a shop window. Always there is the sense of a human presence.
About the book: Looked at from a distance of nearly three years, the empty city could be the result of any number of modern disasters, but it was a plague. Images from tourist-mecca San Francisco’s suddenly childless playgrounds, vacant transit hubs, and cable carless streets could speak to a nuclear disaster, but instead they are Postcards from the Pandemic.
Included in the book are also many images of the masked strangers Candice Jacobus encountered in her wanderings: everyday folks with handmade protection against the unknown menace.
Artist’s Website: https://www.candicejacobusphotography.com
Instagram handle: @cjverite
Harvey Milk Photo Center Photo Book Open Call 2024 (TBD)
Bay Area Photobook Collection The Harvey Milk Photo Center is developing a collection of photobooks from Bay Area artists within the David Johnson Reference Library and invites artists and publishers from the Bay Area to submit their books for consideration.
The selected books will be displayed in the David Johnson Reference Library at the Harvey Milk Photo Center in San Francisco. In addition, the books will be featured on our social media and will go into the permanent collection at the Center. Five books will be selected per cycle and will be judged by a committee from the Center.
Our aim is to promote and showcase a wide variety of photobooks. We are interested in photobooks independently or commercially published, including handmade, self-published, book dummies, zines, limited-edition publications, and other printed matters. Books that feature the work of more than one artist are also eligible for submission.
Submissions open March 19th 2024 – April 17th 2024
Notifications will go out May 15th.
Please submit the following below:
1. Your artist statement and a short description of the book including number of pages, approximate number of photos, dimensions, and materials
2. Six to ten images of your book
3. An up to date CV
4. Your website and social media handles
2025 Submissions open Date TBD.