My recent vacation in London and Paris turned out to be a real working holiday for me, as I spent a great deal of time in libraries and bookstores searching for books by black photographers. I was like a kid in the proverbial candy store! Thrillingly, I came away with at least a dozen new (to me) titles (already pushing 2008 into the double digits!), which I’ll be updating here—hopefully we can get some reviews of all the 2008 titles. Coming home just a day and half ago I’ve already discovered several others through e-mails and other messages and from simply doing some web searching (who knew Angèle Etoundi Essamba has 11 monograph publications?! That puts her in line behind Carrie Mae Weems and Lorna Simpson with the most titles—it might even put her ahead of Carrie. I lucked upon an exhibition of her work at the Musée Dapper in Paris—it was listed in one of the free magazines in the hotel. I made these blurry, ambient light photos of the installation—the images were in a darkened room, each lit by its own spotlight. The show runs through July in conjunction with the exhibition Femmes dans les arts d’Afrique).

And Koto Bolofo? I was reading the March issue of Glamour magazine and saw the photographer credited in one of the editorial layouts and thought to myself, wait, that sounds like an African name and sure enough, Bolofo has several publications. So as you can see, this is a work in progress. If you are a black photographer and I don’t list your publication on this site, please take a moment to drop me an e-mail and let me know. Stay tuned for the next week or so while I get them all added to the site.