Eugene Richards: In This Brief Life

Eugene Richards has compiled a collection of over 50 years of unseen photographs in his book, This Brief Life, reflecting on the meaning of socially conscious documentary photography in the modern era. He began posting his photographs on social media after his son's suggestion, sifting through dusty binders of contact sheets and scanning negatives.

Format: Hardback
Length: 180 pages
Publication date: 23 September 2023
Publisher: Many Voices Press

A half-century of social documentary from the acclaimed American photographer, with previously unseen works.

In this deeply personal book, Eugene Richards (born 1944) excavated a collection of more than 50 years of mostly unseen photographs—from his earliest pictures of sharecropper life in the Arkansas Delta to the present.

In the midst of a fraught political climate—pandemic, rise in gun violence, polarized politics, and the devastation in Beirut—Richards found himself meditating on what it means to make socially conscious documentary photography today.

Upon his sons suggestion, he began to post his photographs on social media, sifting through dusty binders of contact sheets—photographs taken for a community newspaper, on assignment for magazines, as a volunteer for human rights organizations, when wandering alone and at home with his family, and scanning the negatives.

In This Brief Life compiles these works, along with personal commentary and extensive captions by the photographer.

Weight: 1150g
Dimension: 254 x 258 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780991218929