From 1998 to 2003, fine press photography book publisher 21st Editions released 6 volumes of The Journal of Contemporary Photography featuring hand-pulled photogravure images from an international group of contemporary photographers. The photogravures are made by Jon Goodman. The images are combined with criticism, poetry, and fiction from acclaimed writers. The project aimed, successfully or not, to create a contemporary version of Stieglitz’s celebrated Camera Work.

This image is from Volume V, aptly named Strange Genius, is an insightful examination of the ways in which artists today make conscious attempts to create work that can often be unsettling, difficult, even horrific, yet all the while retaining that strangely mysterious sense of what can only be called beautiful. Writers include poets Raúl Peschiera, Susan Ludvigson, Gerard Malanga, and Paul Zimmer; novelists Ann Beattie and Neil Connelly; and essayists Paul LaRosa, Lance Speer, and John Wood. Photographers include Sally Mann, Michal Macku, Connie Imboden, Vincent Serbin, Sheila Metzner, Andrea Modica, Josephine Sacabo, John Metoyer, David Levinthal, Stephen Berkman, Kelly Grider, Keith Carter, Christopher Pekoe, and Don Gregorio Anton.