Water for Tears by Joan Liftin

Published 2018 by Damiani Books. 9 x 10.125 inches, approximately 75 black and white photographs, 144 pages. $25 plus shipping "Joan Liftin's third monograph, Water for Tears, is a lyrical memoir. The book is about family and trips, about running away and coming back, short texts and photographs about pleasure in the newness of everyday life. There are layered images from everywhere, like the blind woman feeling her way by a timeworn splattered wall in Mexico or the teenage boys posing with a head of Reagan in the Soviet Union in 1988, while the darkest ones are from the American South's brutality during the struggle of the Civil Rights Movement. Her observations are mysterious, sensuous and often very funny. At the heart of the book is a tender farewell to her life with Charlie (photographer Charles Harbutt). There are no captions or dates, except in the back of the book, but you know where you are—you are with Joan." —Sylvia Plachy JOAN LIFTIN (1935–2023) became staff photographer and photo editor at UNICEF in 1971. She subsequently worked as director of the Magnum Photo library. In 1981, together with her husband Charles Harbutt, Mary Ellen Mark, Abigail Heyman, and Mark Godfrey, she cofounded Archive Photos. Liftin was a noted photobook editor who was involved with over twenty publications, including Mary Ellen Mark’s Falkland Road (Knopf, 1988), Charles Harbutt’s Departures and Arrivals (Damiani, 2012), Jeff Jacobson’s Melting Point (Nazraeli, 2006) and Andrea Stern’s Dog Days (BDP, 2017). From 1988 to 2000, she was chair of the International Center of Photography School’s documentary photography program. She was the author of three monographs: Drive-ins (Trolley Press, 2004), Marseille (Damiani, 2015), and Water for Tears (Damiani, 2018). She wrote the introduction for The Un-Concerned Photographer (Minor Matters, 2020).