CAMERA — zakwaters

CAMERA is my photography based review channel on YouTube.
In addition, I also review a number of other photography-related elements from the work of other photographers, zines, exhibitions, magazines, posters, brochures to interviews.

CAMERA evolved through my love of photography books, but also with my day to day work with photography students, where I soon realised that in this digital age a large proportion of them had never looked through or read a photography book.

So I started introducing and reviewing my ever-growing photo book collection on You Tube and it has evolved from there.

I am grateful to all the photographers who have sent me their work in both book and zine formats. I am also grateful to MACK Books who have chosen to work with me in reviewing a number of their books. If you would like me to review your book then please email me on info.camera.gallery@gmail.com

At present I am working on a number of ideas to take CAMERA on to the high st as a physical place where people can walk in and enjoy as well as purchase great photography books. Watch this space for developments.

Thank you

CAMERA is on: ︎ ︎ ︎ ︎

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A slection of videos:
CAMERA Exhibitions: Paul McCartney: Eyes of the Storm 1963-64. Photographs captured by McCartney, using his own camera, between December 1963 and February 1964 – a time when The Beatles were catapulted from a British sensation to a global phenomenon. These never-before-seen images offer a uniquely personal perspective on what it was like to be a ‘Beatle’ at the start of ‘Beatlemania’ – and adjusting from playing gigs on UK stages, to performing to 73 million Americans on The Ed Sullivan Show. At a time when so many camera lenses were on the band, Paul McCartney’s photographs offer a crucial new perspective on the story of a band creating cultural history – in one of its most exciting chapters.

CAMERA Exhibitions: Chris Killip, retrospective. The Photographers Gallery. A quick walk through the Chris Killip, retrospective. Fri 07 Oct 2022 - Sun 19 Feb 2023 The Photographers Gallery 16-18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW
This retrospective exhibition of more than 140 works, serves as the most comprehensive survey of Chris Killip's work to date and includes previously unseen works.

#181 CAMERA book review: Mountaintops to Moonscapes by Alan Gignoux. Mountaintops to Moonscapes is a handmade photobook in which photographer Alan Gignoux documents the ruinous impact of mountaintop removal mining on the Appalachian region and its people.Mountaintops to Moonscapes comprises a large-format book with a slip-sleeve, hand-bound in multiple parts, and a booklet in which origami folding techniques are used to express the violence being done to the Appalachian landscape.Designed by Emily Macaulay and Chloe JunoPublished by Stanley James Press Edition of 100 Softcover with card slipcase 56 pages in the larger book and a small 12-page booklet 350 x 255mm ISBN 9781999961015

#184 CAMERA book review: MY NAME IS NOOR MOHAMMAD KHAN by Noor Mohammad Khan. It is hard to describe the magical stories Noor presents to us in this book about Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 70s and 80s, as well as what it means to really immerse yourself in a place far away from your home. The book speaks of so many incredible encounters that seem impossible today."I WILL TELL YOU ABOUT SOME OF THE PEOPLE I MET AND PLACES I SAW MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO IN THOSE AREAS YOU MAY ONLY KNOW FROM THE NEWS HEADLINES. LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO THE HOME OF MY HEART” Noor Mohammed KhanMY NAME IS NOOR MOHAMMAD KHAN by Noor Mohammad Khan 20x15cm / 240 Pages Softcover, digital print with hand-made cover First edition of 130 + 20 special edition.

#180 CAMERA book review: North Guerrillas by John Bolloten. A look through the world of secret outdoor cannabis growing in Yorkshire, England through the eyes of photographer John Bolloten and his new colour book North Guerrillas.Limited edition 250 copies. Full colour Size: A4 76 Pages 74 Photographs Card cover.

#179 CAMERA book review: Tony Davis - House Train Italy 1991. A quick look through a selection of black & white images by photographer Tony Davis and his documentary work on the 90s rave scene. This book depicts the House Train, which was taking revelers to club Cocoricò in Rimini, Italy 1991.Published by Cafe Royal Books 2021
36 Pages Dimensions 21 x 14 cm Paperback Staple Bound.

#178 CAMERA book review: Life's a Ball by Ivor Baddiel and Zak Waters. An insight into the images and story of Life's a Ball 90s. You can buy the book using this link: https://fistfulofbooks.com/product/li... ‘Life’s a Ball 90s’ is a documentary photo book by Zak Waters that takes a nostalgic and affectionate look at diehard UK football fans in the mid 90’s.Contrary to what you may think ‘Life’s a Ball 90s’ is not a book about football – it is a book about people who like football – REALLY like football!It is a photobook of two halves:The first half consists of photos and interviews with 25 of the most impassioned football fans you are likely to meet. Fans such as Copland Nutter (Rangers), Tango (Sheffield Wednesday), Billy Bluebeat (Chelsea), Vinnie The Parrot (Celtic), Frank Sidebottom (Altrincham) and many more.The second half is all about Groundhoppers, a group of like-minded people (men mostly) who Tyneside-based newspaper The Journal described as “the train spotters of British football”. The Groundhoppers documented in Life’s A Ball 90s visited football grounds in the Northern League – it didn’t matter who was playing (they didn’t support a particular team), they were fans of football in the purest sense! They were also fans of the grounds on which the game was played and they had their little rituals – some liked (had) to touch all the corner posts, some would log every pass in every game they watched and so on. Zak accompanied the Northern League Groundhoppers on two Easter weekend outings – the first in 1995 and then again in 1996.Life’s A Ball 90s Zak Waters Hardcover 140 pages 200 x 300mm Edition of 750 Offset colour printing.

#177 CAMERA book review: Out of Order by Molly Macindoe. A look through a wonderful book that depicts the underground rave scene between 1997 - 2006, entitled Out of Order by Molly Macindoe.
Publisher: Front Left Books; 2nd edition (1 Jan. 2015)
Language: ‎English
Hardcover: ‎ 476 pages
ISBN-10: ‎0993228801 ISBN-13: ‎978-0993228803
Dimensions: 24.4 x 3.1 x 17 cm
First Edition:
Publisher: Tangent Books (12 May 2011)
Language: ‎English
Paperback: ‎436 pages
ISBN-10: ‎1906477434 ISBN-13: ‎978-1906477431
Dimensions: ‎23.8 x 1.5 x 15.9 cm.

#1 CAMERA - 5 in Focus: Photographers - Episode 1. The first episode of Camera 5 in Focus features the work of Photographers Paul Russell, Jack Lowe, Bobby Beasley, Craig Bernard and Polly Alderton.

#172 CAMERA book review: The Teds by Chris Steele Perkins & Richard Smith. A look through the 1979 first Edition of The Teds by photographer Chris Steele Perkins & writer Richard Smith.The Teddy Boys were a flashily dressed, rebellious, and sometimes violent youth movement that originated in Britain in the '50s. The three-quarter-length Edwardian jacket with velvet collar, drainpipe trousers, and quiff became a focus of male fashion which still holds cult status today. The Teds combines image and text to tell their story--a fascinating tale spanning three decades.
Publisher: Travelling Light (29 Oct. 1979)
Language: English
Paperback: 120 pages
ISBN-10: 0906333059 ISBN-13: 978-0906333051

#171 CAMERA book review: Harry Gruyaert 'Made in Belgium'. A wonderful book through the surreal and colourful eyes of Harry Gruyaert and his book 'Made in Belgium'Made in Belgium combines the work of photographer Harry Gruyaert and writer Hugo Claus. Both of them try to express through their work the ambivalent feeling they have toward their country, wavering between love and hate.After some time away, Harry Gruyaert decided to return to his homeland. He then started to document his surroundings, the beauty but also the mundane. Aimed at avoiding yielding to melancholy, he discarded black and white photography and chose the realism of bright colors. The result is a fascinating insight into Belgium during the 70s, hesitating between tradition and modernity.
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: DELPIRE (25 Sept. 2000)
Language: French
ISBN-10: 285107203X ISBN-13: 978-2851072030
Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 1.2 x 29.8 cm.

CAMERA Vintage Posters.
A quick sneak at the selection of original vintage posters in the CAMERA collection.

#163 CAMERA book review: Humphrey Spender: Worktown People: Photographs from Northern England,37-38. A look through Humphrey Spender's beautiful and inspiring book on working-class life in Britain in the 1930s. Spender's celebrated photographs taken for the Mass Observation project
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Falling Wall Press; 1st edition (1 Jan. 1982)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 090504620X ISBN-13: 978-0905046204
Package Dimensions: 27.6 x 19.6 x 1.2 cm.

#162 CAMERA book review: Jonas Bendiksen: The Last Testament. A look through the wonderful work of Jonas Bendiksen with his latest book The Last TestamentImagined as a sequel to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible by Magnum photographer Jonas Bendiksen, The Last Testament features visual accounts and stories of seven men around the world who claim to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Building on biblical form and structure, chapters dedicated to each Jesus include excerpts of their scriptural testaments, laying out their theology and demands on mankind in their own words. Through Bendiksen’s personal testimonies and intimate portraits, The Last Testament investigates the boundaries of religious faith, and a world in need of salvation, yearning for a new prophet. Whether escaping an angry mob in the streets with the Jesus of Kitwe, joining a Messianic birthday pilgrimage in Siberia, or witnessing the End of Days with Moses in South Africa, Bendiksen immerses himself among the disciples of each Jesus. He takes at face value that each is the one true Messiah returned to Earth, to forge an account that’s both a work of apocalyptic journalism and of compelling artistic imagination.
Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Aperture; 01 edition (7 Sept. 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1597114286 ISBN-13: 978-1597114288
Product Dimensions: 16.5 x 4.4 x 25.4 cm.

#161 CAMERA book review: John Angerson An English Journey. An English Journey 2019: What one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England.To celebrate 85 years since the publication of English Journey by the author JB Priestley photographer John Angerson has retraced his steps over a period of 3 years. English Journey has become a benchmark for writers, social historians, and photographers. George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’ and much of the work of photographer Bill Brandt bear its influence. This contemporary photographic journey embraces the English Journey, by using the subtitle of the book: ‘Being a rambling but truthful account of what one man saw and heard and felt and thought during a journey through England’.
Hardback 118pages
15.4 cm x 21.4 cm
60 colour Photographs
Published by B&W Studio
ISBN: 978-1-5272-3023-1

#160 CAMERA book review: Burt Glinn Havana: The Revolutionary Moment. A look through a piece of history and some amazing photographs from Burt Glinn and his Havana series.Havana: The Revolutionary Moment presents a unique collection of rarely seen photographs by veteran Magnum photographer Burt Glinn, recording Castro’s historic entry into Havana in January 1959.In his memoir, Glinn describes the combination of chutzpah and journalistic prescience that led him to leave a New York party and hop a plane to Havana on New Year’s Eve. This snap decision made Glinn one of three western photographers (the other two are no longer alive) to accompany Castro at that time, and the images have been virtually unseen since then. The photographs—of Fidel thronged by his fellow Cubans along the road to Havana, of troops embracing, and of fierce men and women taking up arms in the streets—are full of the revolutionary fervor and idealistic anticipation that characterized that moment in Cuban history.
The entire book, including essays by Cuban Minister of Plastic Arts Rafael Acosta de Arriba and editor Nan Richardson, as well as Burt Glinn’s “The Day Havana Fell,” is bilingual in Spanish and English. "It is an astonishing experience to look at Burt Glinn's on-the-spot photographs of Fidel Castro's 1959 triumphal march into Havana. It is a historic moment captured by a courageous master craftsman." —Studs Turkel, Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
Burt Glinn first became known for his spectacular color coverage of the South Seas, Japan, Russia, Mexico, and California. Collaborating with author Laurens van der Post, he has produced two books: A Portrait of All the Russias and A Portrait of Japan. Glinn was one of the original contributing editors of New York Magazine. He has authored editorial stories for magazines such as Esquire, GEO, Travel and Leisure, and Fortune, and published reportage in magazines such as LIFE and Paris-Match, covering the Sinai War, the U.S. Marine invasion of Lebanon, Castro’s takeover in Cuba, and the integration of schools in Little Rock. He is a past president of the American Society of Media Photographers, and a member of the Magnum Photographic Cooperative, having served at different times as its president and chairman of the board. He has received many awards, including the Mathew Brady Award as the Magazine Photographer of the Year from the University of Missouri and the Encyclopedia Britannica; and the Award for the Best Book of Photographic Reporting from Abroad from the Overseas Press Club. Glinn has had one-man shows at the Photographers Gallery in London and the Nikon Gallery in New York, among others.
Group shows include In Our Time at the International Center of Photography, New York, and major cities; and Magnum Cinema, Magnum East, and 1968, at the Newseum, New York City and Washington D.C. Born in Pittsburgh in 1925, Burt Glinn died in 2008.
Publisher: Umbrage Editions
Publication Date: 2002
Binding: Hardcover.

#153 CAMERA book review: Black Garden by Jason Eskenazi. A look through the 2nd book in his trilogy Black Garden by Jason Eskenazi. The Black Garden moves into the mythological world of opposites and duality and concentrates on three main themes: the subjugation of women, domination over the animal kingdom, and self-destruction through war. Black Garden –
Book Specifications 184 pages 29 x 21 cm
154 black & white photographs / Duotone
Open spine binding
ISBN 978-0-9841954-6-6

#128 CAMERA book review: Genesis by Sebastião Salgado. A look through the magnificent work of Sebastião Salgado and what is regarded to be his last epic documentary project Genesis."In GENESIS, my camera allowed nature to speak to me. And it was my privilege to listen." Sebastião SalgadoOver 30 trips―traveled by foot, light aircraft, seagoing vessels, canoes, and even balloons, through extreme heat and cold and in sometimes dangerous conditions―Salgado created a collection of images showing us nature, animals, and indigenous peoples in breathtaking beauty. Mastering the monochrome with an extreme deftness to rival the virtuoso Ansel Adams, Salgado brings black-and-white photography to a new dimension; the tonal variations in his works, the contrasts of light and dark, recall the works of Old Masters such as Rembrandt and Georges de La Tour.
What does one discover in GENESIS? The animal species and volcanoes of the Galápagos; penguins, sea lions, cormorants, and whales of the Antarctic and South Atlantic; Brazilian alligators and jaguars; African lions, leopards, and elephants; the isolated Zo’é tribe deep in the Amazon jungle; the Stone Age Korowai people of West Papua; nomadic Dinka cattle farmers in Sudan; Nenet nomads and their reindeer herds in the Arctic Circle; Mentawai jungle communities on islands west of Sumatra; the icebergs of the Antarctic; the volcanoes of Central Africa and the Kamchatka Peninsula; Saharan deserts; the Negro and Juruá rivers in the Amazon; the ravines of the Grand Canyon; the glaciers of Alaska... and beyond. Having dedicated so much time, energy, and passion to the making of this work, Salgado calls GENESIS “my love letter to the planet.
”Whereas the limited Collector’s Edition is conceived like a large-format portfolio that meanders across the planet, this unlimited book presents a selection of photographs arranged in five chapters geographically: Planet South, Sanctuaries, Africa, Northern Spaces, Amazonia, and Pantanal. Each in its own way, this book and the Collector’s Edition―both edited and designed by Lélia Wanick Salgado―pay homage to Salgado’s triumphant and unparalleled GENESIS project.
Hardcover: 520 pages
Publisher: TASCHEN Gmbh; Trade edition (5 April 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3836538725 ISBN-13: 978-3836538725
Product Dimensions: 24.9 x 4.4 x 35.4 cm.

#107 CAMERA book review: Small Town Inertia by Jim Mortram. A look through the wonderful Small Town Inertia by Jim Mortram.Small Town Inertia is a remarkable body of work. A full-time carer for his mother, Jim is, like his subjects, unable to escape from the geographical confines of his hometown and his understanding and sympathy for his struggling neighbours is apparent in every photograph.This is a timely book; a firm rebuttal of damaging government welfare policies and their well-used rhetoric that ‘we are all in this together.’
Photographer Jim Mortram with essays by Lewis Bush and Paul Mason
ISBN 9781908457363 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781908457370 (Soft cover)
Hardback with dust jacket
Duotone + 192pp

#100 CAMERA book review: Tulsa by Larry Clark. A look through Larry Clark's controversial early photography series Tulsa. A real insight into youth culture and the 60's drug scene in suburban America.

#85 CAMERA book review: Tokyo Still Life by Nobuyoshi Araki. Published to coincide with an exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (30 May until 8 July 2001). Part of the official event of Japan 2001.

As part of the Japan Festival 2001, Ikon Gallery will show the first UK solo museum exhibition of work by Japanese artist Nobuyoshi Araki. The exhibition catalogue will consist of a new selection from the vast range of photographic series he has completed to date - including Sentimental Journey, 1991, Tokyo Nude, 1989, Tokyo Nostalgia, 1999 - and new work that has never been exhibited before.

Araki is a remarkable artist, amongst the most influential working today, with a paradoxical style, at once informal and arresting, reverent and vulgar, spontaneous and profound. Perhaps most famous for his erotic photographs, his work touches on universal (timeless) themes through distinctly Japanese subject matter. His understanding of the message of his chosen medium is clear and his aesthetic proposition wonderfully refreshing.

“I always want to be in the gap, in a delicately balanced position - the gap between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the gap between the sacred and the vulgar, fiction and reality, art and obscenity.”
Nobuyoshi Araki, 1999
ISBN: 0907594743
Publisher: Ikon Gallery Ltd
Paperback: 96 pages
Language: English.

#74 CAMERA book review: Richard Billingham (Agnes b The Ikon Gallery). A little look at a very interesting book produced in conjunction with a retrospective exhibition of Richard's work at the Ikon Gallery.Title: Richard Billingham (agnès b, Ikon Gallery)
Publisher: Ikon Gallery and agnès b, Paris, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Publication Date: 2000
Binding: Hardcover Dust Jacket
Edition: 1st Edition.

#61 CAMERA book review: Liverpool Looking Out to Sea by Peter Marlow. A look through the most wonderful book Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea by the late Peter Marlow. For me probably the most personal and greatest photography book in my collection. I hope you enjoy it. For more information on Peter Marlow: Peter Marlow Foundation.

#13 CAMERA book review: Infidel by Tim Hetherington.
A look through the late Tim Hetherington's book Infidel.
For more information on Tim: The Tim Hetherington Trust

All images and audio recordings are copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without written permission. All Rights Reserved. ©Zak Waters 2024

Please share and subscribe. Thank you.

All images and audio recordings are copyright and may not be copied or reproduced without written permission.
All Rights Reserved. ©Zak Waters 2024