photo book review

Poor Politicians
28 Destroyed Posters of Albanian
Politicians in the Streets of Prishtina

photographs by
Frederic Lezmi

This is the second in a series of delightfully quirky photobooks of images made by Frederic Lezmi with his iPhone. It's not really a book; it's more like a box of beautifully printed lithographs on heavy paper — so you can take them out one by one to appreciate them (even frame them), shuffle the order, or arrange them as a grid on your wall... They are self-published in a signed limited edition of 100.

I like the fact that they are also ephemeral bits of street art, symbols of anarchy tempered with the beauty of collage, captured on the go with a camera phone, and filtered through a computer application that attempts to replicate the look of Polaroids. They also serve as sociological specimens from the streets of a new democracy in Europe.

Lezmi says, "These pictures were taken in the streets of Prishtina in May 2011, using an iPhone and the 'Shake-It-Photo Polaroid' app. All persons depicted are politicians of the different parties of the Kosovar political scene. Kosovo is Europe's youngest democracy."

— Jim Casper

Poor Politicians
by Frederic Lezmi
15,5 x 21 cm
29 Cards in a Box
Sunday Books, 2011

Poor Politicians II
by Frederic Lezmi
15,5 x 21 cm
29 Cards in a Box
Sunday Books, 2011

Books can be purchased directly from the photographer at http://lezmi.de/store/
or through the excellent online photobook source: http://www.schaden.com/.