Memory City by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb (Grade - E)
Memory City by Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb is a powerful and deeply reflective photography book that explores the relationship between memory, time, urban transformation, and the fading legacy of analogue photography. Created shortly after the bankruptcy of the Eastman Kodak Company in 2012, the book is set in Rochester, New York, the city that served as Kodak's headquarters for more than a century. Rather than functioning as a conventional documentary, Memory City becomes a poetic visual meditation on a city undergoing profound cultural and economic change while simultaneously marking the end of the Kodachrome era. Alex Webb photographs Rochester using his final rolls of Kodachrome film—processed into black-and-white because colour processing had ceased—alongside vibrant digital colour images that contrast past and present. Rebecca Norris Webb complements his work with evocative colour still lifes, portraits, and intimate scenes, creating an emotional dialogue between memory and reality. Interwoven throughout the book are quotations from notable figures associated with Rochester, including Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, John Ashbery, and Ilya Kaminsky, as well as a historical timeline documenting the city's cultural evolution. Beautifully designed with fold-out pages and a separate booklet, Memory City is more than a photography collection—it is a thoughtful exploration of impermanence, history, artistic practice, and the emotional power of place. It is an outstanding work for photographers, artists, historians, and anyone interested in documentary photography, visual storytelling, and urban history.
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