Book Review: "Personal History” by Carole Glauber
Carole On Floor, by Ben
There are many photographers out there who photograph family in one way or another. There are very few that do it as succinctly, fluidly, and accurately as Carole Glauber does in her new book, Personal History. The soft, dreamy imagery comes straight from our memories. They take on a look that questions whether they are real or imagined in a way that forces you to want to hold on to them that much more fervently. The timeline is accurate enough to show us the testament of a mother's love by documenting her children from birth, through childhood and teen years, right on into adulthood. These are the photographs that describe an immense chapter in a family's life - and indeed, one that starts innocently enough, then culminating into a new chapter as a new family begins.
Glauber makes the right choice in photographic tools by loading film into the quintessential family camera of the 1950s, the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. This is the camera that set the standard of the family snapshot, leaving millions of people with album upon album of memories to pass down through generations. There is nothing set up or staged anywhere in this book. There's none of that, "Go stand against the wall with your brother and act like you like each other!" happening here. These are slivers of time that are authentic and provide us with private lives made public. This is by no means a bad thing since it is clear that anyone with a heart and a soul can relate to the actions and feelings captured through this book's pages.
It's an interesting thing to experience the photographs of another person's family, and while I do not have children of my own, it's still easy to correlate my own childhood years with what I see as I turn each page. These photographs make me long for those moments when it was everything to explore nature, jump on a trampoline, or get into a bike race. Simple pleasures that are not so easy to replicate as an adult - at least not with that same sense of innocence that occurred back then. It makes you realize that Glauber was not only capturing family moments but living vicariously again through the lives of her two boys as they navigate the world around them.
An essay from fellow photographer Elinor Carucci starts the book off with one mother relating to another mother's journey of raising children, documenting the fleeting moments of their lives, and eventually witnessing them leave the nest. With heartfelt sentiment, Carucci knows precisely what is at play here, and it's the perfect way to set the stage for the glimpses of life you are about the witness as you dive into the photographs. In addition to some words from Glauber herself at the end of the book, we are also gifted the thoughts of her sons as they tell their tale of an adoring mother, camera in hand, running after them through the years, fervently making photographs of them to their dismay and curiosity. This is a lovely way to provide additional context to the dreamlike images that pervade Personal History. Who better to give witness to the simple events we've just poured through than the subjects themselves.
GALLERY
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Personal History by Carol Glauber
Publisher: Daylight Books
Date: 2020
9.25 inches x 9.25 inches
60 color images by Carole Glauber
112 pages
Hardbound
Foreword, “A Dreamed Reality” by Elinor Carucci
Haiku by Carole Glauber
Afterword by Carole Glauber
Contributions by Ben Glauber and Sam Glauber-Zimra
Biographies of the contributors
Photographer Elinor Carucci is famed for her intimate documentation of her family. She has published four monographs of her work and been exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
Ben Glauber lives in Herzliya, Israel with his wife.
Sam Glauber-Zimra studies at the Goldstein-Goren Department of Jewish Thought at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, where he researches developments in the religious life of Eastern European Jewry in the twentieth century. He and his wife live in Jerusalem.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Carole Glauber is a photographer and photo-historian—a combination that influences the photographs she makes. While traveling, or at home, she strives to capture cultures, people, and landscapes to express her experiences during the day or night. She uses different kinds of cameras ranging from digital to film, to create and record her imagery, often moving from the literal to the impressionistic, while still maintaining the reality of what she saw. She is the author of two books: Personal History (Daylight Books, 2020) and Witch of Kodakery: The Photography of Myra Albert Wiggins 1869-1956 (Washington State University Press, 1997).
Her photographs have been exhibited in exhibitions internationally including PH21 Gallery in Budapest, ValidFoto in Barcelona, Festival Pil’Ours in France, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Blue Sky Gallery, ASmith Gallery, RayKo Photo Center, the Somerville Toy Camera Festival, the Curated Fridge, the Griffin Museum of Photography at Lafayette Center, and PhotoPlace Gallery, amongst others in the United States. She has received Gold and Bronze medals from the Budapest International Foto Competition and Tokyo International Foto Awards for Personal History. Her photographs have been honored by PX3 Prix de la Photographie, Paris, the Mobile Photography Awards, PHmuseum Mobile Photography, the International Photography Awards, the Tokyo International Foto Awards, Pollux Awards, the Julia Margaret Cameron Awards, the Soho Photo Gallery International Krappy Kamera Competition and the Lightbox Photo Gallery. She is the recipient of the Peter E. Palmquist Photographic History Research Fellowship, a Winterthur Museum Fellowship, an Oregon Humanities Research Fellowship, and grants from the National Coalition of Independent Scholars, Regional Arts, and Culture Council, and Northwest Women’s History Project.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Michael Kirchoff is a photographic artist, independent curator and juror, and advocate for the photographic arts. He has been a juror for Photolucida’s Critical Mass, and has reviewed portfolios for the Los Angeles Center of Photography’s Exposure Reviews, PhotoNOLA, and CENTER’s Review Santa Fe. Michael has been a contributing writer for Lenscratch, Light Leaked, and Don’t Take Pictures magazine. In addition, he spent ten years (2006-2016) on the Board of the American Photographic Artists in Los Angeles (APA/LA), producing artist lectures, as well as business and inspirational events for the community. Currently, he is also Editor-in-Chief at Analog Forever Magazine, Founding Editor for the online photographer interview website, Catalyst: Interviews, and a Contributing Editor for the column, Traverse, at One Twelve Publishing. Previously, Michael spent over four years as Editor at BLUR Magazine.