Liz Kuball Photography | Blog: Buy this: <i>Sadkids</i>

A month or so ago, I got an e-mail from Geoffrey Ellis, a photographer in San Francisco who’s pals with Timothy Briner and some other folks I know. Geoff’s name was familiar to me, and when I checked out his work, I realized that he was the guy behind one of my favorite photos.

We shot the shit about The Wire (I’ve since finished the series, but I was still in the throes of it at the time), started following each other on Twitter, and had some great e-mail conversations about photography and projects and day jobs and fun stuff like that. Soon thereafter, we both found out we hadn’t gotten in to Critical Mass, and he was part of my UnCritical Mass show.

Geoff publishes a zine called Sadkids, and was kind enough to send me issues 4 and 5, both of which are excellent. But I’m here to talk about Issue 4 of Sadkids, the second printing of which is still available on his blog for $10. (Issue 5 is available, too, for the same price.) If I had to rank all the photo books I own, Issue 4 would be in the top five—no lie. It’s a series of photographs taken over the course of a decade in Memphis. Think hand-painted signs on the sides of brick buildings, Wonder Bread and Elvis, BBQ and hair salons, and no loitering. Sadkids shows me things I might normally pass by and makes me want to hold onto them forever.