This is the first in what will be a series of posts looking at the photo books I have on my bookshelf (I don’t currently have an actual bookshelf they’re on the floor), don’t expect an in depth analysis or anything though. If you want proper analysis I suggest the LPV Show website and podcast, these guys really know their stuff and have some really good photographers on.

The first book from my “shelf” and one of the first photo books I ever bought is ‘I’ve Lived in East London for 86 ½ Years’ by Martin Usborne. I bought it in The Photographer’s Gallery Bookshop in London last year, I chose it because it was small and would fit in my already over packed bag and it’s about East London where my Grandad was from. It’s the first book in a series published by Hoxton Mini Press, at the time of writing this post there are 5 other books in the series. I have books 1, 2, 3 and 6 and I plan to buy books 4 and 5 in the future and write more posts about them.

This is a really lovely little book, only 80 pages and 145 x 205mm in size, with a hard cloth cover. The book is the end result of a photo project by Martin Usborne about Joseph Markovitch an elderly gentleman who lived his whole life in East London and never married. The book contains many portraits of Joseph and is accompanied by small snippets of text written by Joseph himself. The text contains Joseph’s thoughts on such things as Art, Fashion, Religion etc. It’s a heart warming book and only takes about 5 to 10 minutes to read, I even gave it to my wife to read. The photographs are a mixture of colour and black and white, are beautifully shot and very poignant. This is one of my favourite books that I own and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Please buy this book, you won’t regret it.

On Sadness

There’s no point crying about things, is there? People don’t see you when you’re sad. Best just to keep walking.