Book of the Week

The Black Triangle
by Josef Koudelka

The Black Triangle is an exploration of the Krušné Mountains and Podkrušnohoří, where Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic meet. Coal mining has brought enormous wealth to the region along with industrialization and pollution. The book’s opening quote from Václav Havel—“Man is not an omniscient master of the planet who can get away with doing whatever he likes and whatever may suit him at the moment”—is illustrated by Josef Koudelka's images of waste heaps, smokestacks, and dried-up lakes, though Koudelka still manages to evoke the macabre beauty of this land.

All my photographs are portraits—self-portraits, because you can’t photograph someone without reflecting, echoing, like a bat sending out a signal that comes back to you. You get not only a picture of who you’re photographing, but you get a picture of yourself at the same time.

Bruce Davidson