Kevin Bubriski, Images of Nepal 1975-2011 (Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum Press/Radius Books, 2014) 303 p. ISBN 978-1934435724 “Kevin Bubriski is Assistant Professor of Photography at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont, and was the 2010 recipient of the Robert Gardner Visiting Artist Fellowship at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University.” The photographer first encountered Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer and has maintained his connections there.

Colin Nicholas, Curator, Malaysia Indigenous Youth in the City (Petaling Jaya: GB Gerakbudaya, 2013) 92 p. ISBN 9789834324896. “As part of an international project for indigenous youth to let us have a peek into their lives as they see it, eight Orang Asli and Kadazandusun youths were given compact digital cameras and a little instruction to document their lives, and the urban world they now find themselves in. The result is a collection of images that tell powerful stories of life in rapid transition and of how indigenous identities are being shaped and re-shaped [source: publisher’s website].”

Ferdinand M. Bertholet & Lambert van der Aalsvoort, with an introduction by Régine Thiriez, Among the Celestials: China in Early Photographs (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014) 224 p. ISBN 9780300196566 “The flourishing of photography as a medium in the mid-19th century coincided with a rise in curiosity about China on the part of the Western world. As the number of foreigners living and traveling in China increased, early photographs of China were taken by and for an international audience. Among the Celestials assembles 250 fascinating images of China in the second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th, captured by the Western camera lens. The photographs portray the gritty side of the country as well as stunning views of palaces, temples, harbors, and gardens. This juxtaposition of the sordid and the serene provides a multidimensional picture of China’s physical and social landscape before Mao Zedong’s ascent to power changed the country forever. The photographs, many published here for the first time, are both beautiful and moving, and together offer a new understanding of a social and cultural history associated with a time of significant historical change [source: Yale U.P. website].”

Alfred Ke, Claustro/Agoraphobia (Hong Kong: Asiaone, 2014) 132 p. ISBN 978-988-13179-3-3 “What permeates this collection of photographs is this irony of absence; of how men and the spaces they inhabit are so starkly devoid of any interaction. In addition to an apocalyptic sense of bleakness, the bright, saturated colours feel strangely muted. Black and white may be clearly delineated, but it neither calms nor reassures, and people somehow coexist without even a trace of intimacy or contact. This potent combination of effects drive home the sense of helplessness and belittlement men feel in front of the mighty constructions that they erected in the first place [source: publisher’s website].”

Lois Connor, in collaboration with Geremie Barmé, Beijing: Contemporary and Imperial (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2014) 169 pp. ISBN 9781616892487 “In three decades of visits to China, celebrated photographer Lois Conner has witnessed firsthand the monumental physical transformation of the country. Nowhere is this change more dramatic than in the capital city of Beijing, the subject of Conner's remarkable new book ...Conner's breathtaking black-and-white panoramas reveal an ancient city in thrall to change, where the lingering splendor of a dynastic past is cast into shadow by rising concrete and steel. Juxtaposed against the ancient ruins from the Gardens of Perfect Brightness, the ultra modern ‘Bird's Nest’ National Olympic Stadium embodies all the ambitions of a rapidly ascending China. And yet, amid all the bustle and spectacle, quietly contemplative images of city life emerge, as if rescued from another era. Rich in tone and flawless in detail, Conner's photographs capture all the complexities and contradictions of this fascinating modern metropolis [source: publisher’s website].“

James Hevia, “The Photography Complex: Exposing Boxer-era China (1900-1901), Making Civilization,” in Empires of Vision: a Reader, ed. by Martin Jay and Sumathi Ramaswamy (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014)

Tōhō Bunka Gakuin. Kyōto Kenkyūjo 東方文化學院 . 京都硏究所. Hirase Takao, Shiozawa Hirohito, Seki Noriko, Nokubo Masatsugu, ed. Tōhō Bunka Gakuin kyūzō kenchiku shashin mokuroku = Catalogue of Old Architectural Photos Formerly Owned by the Institute for Oriental Culture (Tōkyō-to Bunkyō-ku: Tōkyō Daigaku Tōyō Bunka Kenkyūjo Fuzoku Tōyōgaku Kenkyū Jōhō Sentā東京都文京区: 東京大学東洋文化研究所附属東洋学研究情報センター, [2014] 349 p. ISBN 9784903235288

Tōmatsu Shōmei, Chewing Gum and Chocolate; ed by Leo Rubinfien and John Junkerman (New York: Aperture, 2014) 176 p. ISBN 978-1-59711-250-5 “Shomei Tomatsu has created a defining portrait of postwar Japan. Beginning with his meditation on the devastation caused by the atomic bombs in 11:02 Nagasaki, Tomatsu focused on the tensions between traditional Japanese culture and the nation’s growing Westernization. Beginning in the late 1950s, Tomatsu photographed as many of the American military bases as possible—beginning with those on the main island of Japan and ending in Okinawa, a much-contested archipelago off the southernmost tip of the country. Tomatsu’s photographs focused on the impact of the American victory and occupation: uniformed American soldiers carousing in red-light districts with Japanese women; foreign children at play in the seedy landscape of cities like Yokosuka and Atsugi; and the emerging protest- and counter-culture formed in response to the ongoing American military presence. He originally named this series Occupation, but later retitled it Chewing Gum and Chocolate to reflect the handouts given to Japanese kids by the soldiers—sugary and addictive, but lacking in nutritional value [source: publisher’s website].”

Yi, Su-gil 이수길, Hŭiro aerak 희로애락喜怒哀樂 (Seoul: Aehyang 서울, 2014) 119 p. ISBN 9788996033288. Documentary photography of markets in South Korea.

Allegory & Illusion: Early Portrait Photography from South Asia; foreword by E. Alkazi ; with a note by Jan Van Alphen ; contributors, Christoper Pinney, Beth Citron, Rahaab Allana (New Delhi: Mapin Pub. & Alkazi Collection of Photography, 2013) 100 p. ISBN 9788189995829

Mary Ellen Mark, Man and Beast: Photographs from Mexico and India (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2014) 167 p. ISBN 9780292756113. On the interactions of humans and animals.

Tsūtenrō nikki: Yokoyama Matsusaburō to Meiji shoki no shashin, yōga, insatsu 通天楼日記: 横山松三郎と明治初期の写真・洋画・印刷 ; ed. by Tomisaka Ken, Kashiwagi Tomoo, Okatsuka Akiko 富坂賢, 柏木智雄, 岡塚章子 (Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan 思文閣出版, 2014) 583 pages, 4 unnumbered pages of plates ISBN 9784784217298. On printing, foreign painting, and photography at the beginning of the Meiji period (1868-1912), based on the diaries of Yokoyama Matsusaburō, a pioneering Japanese lithographer and photographer who began his artistic career as a painter.

Roger Taylor and Crispin Branfoot, Captain Linnaeus Tripe: Photographer of India and Burma, 1852-1860 (Munich: Prestel, 2014) 224 p. ISBN 9783791353814 “This exhibition traces Tripe’s work from his earliest photographs made in England (1852–1854), to ones created on expeditions to the south Indian kingdom of Mysore (1854), to Burma, (1855), and again to south India (1857–1858). Many of his pictures were the first photographs ever made of celebrated archaeological sites and monuments, ancient and contemporary religious and secular buildings — some now destroyed — as well as geological formations and landscape vistas; thus they provided a new kind of visual information. Yet the dynamic vision Tripe brought to these large, technically complex photographs and the lavish attention he paid to their execution indicate that his aims were not merely documentary but artistic [source: National Gallery of Art website].” Catalog of a traveling exhibition organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Tripe was a British Army officer in India.

Edwin Koo, Paradise (Singapore: Dist. by Select Books, 2013) 164 p. ISBN 9789710579235 “Paradise is a photographic monograph about an author's search for paradise in one of the most controversial places in recent history: the Swat valley of Pakistan. Paradise is at once an introspective journey, as well as a biographical sketch of Swat valley. Through the documentation of daily life and extraordinary happenings in Swat, the author discovers the fragility of Man's interpretation of paradise, as well as the resilience of the human spirit in the face of hell-on-earth. With a sequence of 75 carefully-selected black-and-white images and five chapters of personal notes from his journey, the 164-page volume is the author's attempt to answer the eternal question: "What is paradise?" [from the photographer’s website].

Andreas Müller-Pohle, Hong Kong Waters (Heidelberg; Berlin: Kehrer Verlag, 2013) 94 p. ISBN9783868284102 “Hong Kong Waters is the latest project by Berlin-based media artist Andreas Müller-Pohle. Over a period of two years, he photographed the Asian megacity as seen from the perspective of the water – half below, half above the water’s surface – thus creating a new, hitherto unseen image of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is known for its hyper-dense high-rise architecture, but no less characteristic of the city are its various water landscapes, including 700 kilometers of coastline, 260 islands and countless rivers, canals, reservoirs and waterfalls. Hong Kong Waters brings together these two dimensions of the city: its vertical urbanity and its horizontal alignment to the water [source: publisher’s website].”

3rd Singapore International Photography Festival 05.10.12 - 17.11.12 (Singapore: Dist. by Select Books) 183 p. ISBN 9789810738402 “Singapore's Third International Photography Festival took place in December 2012. Works by the 50 exhibitors show great variety and both established and innovative techniques. Seven essays and papers look at aspects of international contemporary photography and the underlying trends in thought and technique. The exhibited photographs complemented with commentaries are followed by biographical summaries of the photograph[er]s [source: selectbooks.com].”

Keiko Hooton & Tony Godfrey, Contemporary Photography in Asia (Munich: Prestel, 2013) 223 p. ISBN 3791348078 “Global expansion and growing local economies have allowed the obsession with photography to sweep throughout the Asian continent. This beautiful, up-to-date volume documents the growing culture of photography as an art form in Asia, including often overlooked countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Singapore. As well as short essays on the status of photography by region, each artist is introduced through spreads of their work, short biographies and personal statements given exclusively for this unique book [source: selectbooks.com].”

Wheelock Peak Exposure (Hong Kong: Wheelock Properties, 2014), 67 p. Wheelock Properties sponsored a photo competition for Hong Kong youth, with a focus on Hong Kong’s “Peak,” its most identifiable natural formation. A purpose of the competition was to heighten awareness of the beauty and fragility of the Peak among young people. Three Hong Kong preservationist photographers judged the competition, which was preceded by photography workshops. The winning entries are presented in this book.