Book of the Week

Rich and Poor
by Jim Goldberg

Jim Goldberg's photographs of rich and poor Americans in the late 1970s to mid-1980s, with the subjects' own handwritten comments about themselves on the prints, give us an inside look at the American dream at both ends of the social scale. His pictures reveal his subjects' fears and aspirations and their perceptions and illusions about themselves with a frankness that makes the portraits as engrossing as they are disturbing. (Note: The captions are taken from the subjects’ notes in the photos. Therefore, not all punctuation, grammar, and/or spelling is accurate.)

I think of photography like therapy ... It's a relationship to the world I need, a distance: it's being more present and somehow less present.

Harry Gruyaert