NEW BOOK, CAPTIVATING IDEA:

THE INVENTED CAMERA, published by Freedom Voices, San Francisco, 96 pages, color and b/w hardbound

Recycled objects transformed into working cameras, each paired with its symbiotic photograph. A battered suitcase photographs an old motel. A gas can peers up at abandoned filling station pumps. A shinola tin observes its polished boot. A VW van snares roadside attractions. This collection documents 25 years of pinhole and simple-lens tinkering and innovation by Jo Babcock.

"Repurposing a (usually) manufactured object aligns Babcock on the one hand, with Warhol and his Brillo boxes [sigma] but, in contrast to the Pop master, Babcock reintroduces his creations to the world as a new kind of functional object - a representation that now makes representations." (from the essay by Douglas R. Nickel, director for the Center for Creative Photography)

"Resolutely low-tech but conceptually adroit, the images he produces have a raw, antique, sometimes 'terrible' beauty." (from the introduction by Bill Berkson, poet, art critic, teacher, curator)

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