British Journal of Photography April 2012

This month has the usual range of images from both established and newer photographers.

Main articles are on Boris Mikhailov, a Ukrainian engineer turned photographer. He undoubtedly has benefited simply by being a photographer during the Communist era (he had some grief with the KGB) and then producing Case History, an almanac of the people whose life chances struck rock bottom post Communism.

The prints in the article are striking, ranging from some fairly basic record type shots of the Communist era to some effective monochrome images from At Dusk.

The other leading photographer featured is Roger Ballen, who has become almost a cult figure in South Africa. His work is left field - "at the heart of his practice is a belief that a photograph can encompass or borrow from the attributes of fiction, sculpture, theatre or canvas" writes Lucy Davies.

His latest set of images is Asylum in which he more or less eliminates the human face; an interesting development in light of the title and content of this course - would Ballen only do "Place"? Worth quoting Ballen in this context at length:

"I've found that no matter how hard you try, when people look at a photograph, the first thing they go after is the face. That's where the meaning is centralised.If you can pull the face out, then all the other aspects of the image tend to play a greater role."

I like the work - it is imaginative, creative and as close to "art" as you are likely to get in photography.

There is a  portfolio article on Robin Maddock, in particular his work God Forgotten Face, again relevant to this course as Maddock takes images of his adopted home: Plymouth. Have to be frank and say the images in the article were unremarkable - one, of a set of stairs, and another of two wheelie bins, are really very ordinary; one has difficult understanding what message is being conveyed.

Some shorter articles on travel are the month's featured projects. Like Sabine Mirlesse's image of a naked woman in Iceland but rather less convinced by Rupert Nightingale's work in Benidorm or Mark Hartman's in Panama.