October 2025 - Frames Magazine
October 15, 2025
By W. Scott Olsen
There is a type of photo book which, at one level, seems to be more about gear or technique than documentation or theme, and that definition creates a pique of curiosity. Here, for example, they say, is a collection of images all made with a pinhole camera, or a camera obscura, or with a lens ground in a solution made entirely of peanut butter. That definition, that focus, makes us wonder what is possible within a particular limit.
But to say these books are about gear or technique is actually a misunderstanding. There is something else going on, which the hardware and practice help illuminate. The gear is a way of seeing. Fisheye, f/0.9, telephoto, they are all an act of interpretation. But if the images are no good, then there’s no insight or revelation...
Brownie is an extraordinary book, not for what it says about place and not for what it says about technique. It is extraordinary because it brings back to life an interpretive aesthetic milieu...
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