Melanie McWhorter

Photographer/photo-eye Bookstore Manager

Repose.
CHARLOTTE DUMAS

I love the loose folios on matte paper and the way Dumas is able to capture an animal looking right through the photographer—blank, but not vacant.

Maske.
PHYLLIS GALEMBO

The costuming of Galembo's subjects makes the work itself fascinating, but the strength of her portraiture is what really makes the project and book work.

Atlanta.
MICHAEL SCHMELLING

This design of this book reflects its subject well. It rounds out hip hop and rap culture by showing scenes in Atlanta from strip clubs to pit bulls to production studios and interviews with Big Boi, Ludacris, and others.

Oaxaca.
JUAN RULFO

This is such an understated book with its white cover and small square images of Rulfo's, resting on the upper third of the pages. The red edges give it even more of a precious quality reflecting back to an early time in publishing when many books were ornamented in this fashion.

La Residence.
JH ENGSTROEM

This book contains diary excerpts of JH Engstrom printed in three languages. The many parallel folds are a nice feature to hide part of the sequence of images allowing the reader to first take in quotes like "These pictures may be an account of my failure to depict photographically a place I didn't go to for private reasons."

Wrong.
ASGER CARLSEN

Asger made me want to shoot black and white film again. The images reflect back to reportage photography and the likes of Weegee. Looking at the photos in Wrong becomes a surreal seemingly drug-induced experience where I question if I see the photo that way or if my history and my biases are defining and forming the image. They are ever-so-simple, yet with multiple layers of complexity.

The Kaddu Wasswa Archive.
ANDREA STULTIENS

Thanks to George Slade for nominating this one. It brought this wonderful book to my attention which chronicles the day-to-day life of Ugandan teacher and social worker Kaddu Wasswa. It includes photos, excerpts of writings, reproductions of scrapbook pages, among other ephemera on the life of this man. It has a striking cover and the weight of the book feels unusual and comfortable in my hands.

Crime Victims Chronicle.
RAYMOND MEEKS & DEBORAH LUSTER

This is a lament to survival. Disturbing and comforting at this same time all in a serene creamy package with plenty of "white space" for meditation between images and texts.

Grimaces of the Weary Village.
RIMALDIS VIKSRAITIS

This book might be my favorite for cover design. The expression about judging a book by its cover is indeed true. Many books can turn you on, or off, just by its packaging. Not only does it have strength on the exterior, the interior images are disturbing, a sort documentary of "exoticism of the familiar."

Varnish and Mortar.
YUSUKE NAGAI

This is another book that gets me with the cover. The vertical format is perfect for this object and the pages model a family album.

Melanie McWhorter was born and raised in upstate South Carolina. She is a regular contributor to the online magazines Fraction and photo-eye and maintains her own photo-related blog, melaniephotoblog.com. McWhorter manages photo-eye’s Book Division, curates exhibitions of local photographers in photo-eye Bookstore and organizes the monthly First Wednesday Salon. Her photography has recently been exhibited in Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe and in The Sweet Escape at the Morean Arts Center, St. Petersburg, FL. She is also a co-founder of Finite Foto. McWhorter resides with her family in Santa Fe, NM.

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