Featuring Patty Carroll’s striking mustard-coloured ‘draped portrait’ on the cover of the print magazine, and Jason Bell’s shot of Angelina Jolie on our iPad edition, our latest issue broadly covers the theme of play.
Headlined ‘Funny Games’, our June issue (#7825) picks up on a broader trend we’ve been noticing these past three or four years — experimentation is back. Play is seen as a means to an end once again, and if you’re willing, there’s a new manual by which to try something new. Titled The Photographer’s Playbook, it features more than 300 assignments and anecdotes designed to inspire new approaches and break free from the creative doldrums.
Larry Fink gets inside composition in a new title from Aperture, while Gregory Halpern encourages photographers to take a more playful approach to their work in The Photographer’s Playbook
Run alongside exclusive extracts from the likes of Erik Kessels, Roger Ballen, Alec Soth and Broomberg & Chanarin, we interview co-editor Gregory Halpern about the genesis of the book. And in the same feature we speak to legendary photographer and educator Larry Fink, who has published his own book (also by Aperture) on composition and improvisation.
Patty Carroll’s anonymous covered women follow, after Polly Penrose’s nude self-portraits, and before Christopher Pillitz’ take on Brazil’s obsession with the Beautiful Game ahead of this month’s World Cup. Chen Wei provides a different angle on abstraction with his staged images recreating the absurdities of modern life in China.
In Slumber Song, Chinese photographer Chen Wei explores his home country’s struggle with its past as it faces an uncertain future
Off theme we also have an interview with Will Steacy about his five-year study of the declining newspaper industry, told through the story of an eminent US regional and the fate of one of its editors, who also happens to be the photographer’s father. And remaining Stateside, we talk to Jason Bell about his work there, shooting Hollywood’s A-list while fitting in the odd royal assignment back home in between.
Plus we have the usual mix of things to watch out for in this month’s Agenda section, our pick of some of the best new photographic series in Projects, a photojournalism themed Intelligence section, and reviews of kit from Hasselblad, Nikon and Tamron in Technology.
The June print issue is available in all good newsagents throughout the UK from today (visit here for details of overseas sales), while the digital edition can be downloaded to an iPad anywhere in the world via iTunes Newsstand.
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