Nonfiction

In November 2002, war photographer Christopher Anderson had a chance encounter with a Holga, a plastic toy camera manufactured in China. Expecting it to be nothing more than a game, Anderson quickly found a kind of freedom with the plastic camera that differed greatly from his usual work as a war photographer. “My work requires a certain intellectual engagement in trying to visually communicate information both literal and emotional. But I found something very different with this camera. Because it’s a toy, I couldn’t control it the way I normally would. I couldn’t take pictures that were the result of an engaged thought process, because it was physically impossible with this camera,” explains Anderson. Instead, he found himself reacting and taking pictures in a much more instinctive way. “The pictures that I was taking were free of meaning or message and were much more revealing about how I reacted to scenes that I encountered while going about my life,” he adds. Anderson used the plastic camera for a period of eight months, and his photographs were guided solely by emotion and intuition. The softcover book, containing a collection of 54 images, is housed in a colorful box that makes the perfect accessory for any coffee table. Christopher Anderson was born in Canada in 1970. He has produced pictures for many of the world’s most highly regarded publications. His work has documented many conflicts and social issues, such as the Afghan refugee crisis and the plight of Haitian immigrants sailing to America. He is a contract photographer for U.S. News & World Report and regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and National Geographic Adventure. Anderson has received the Robert Capa Gold Medal, the Visa d’Or in Perpignan, the Kodak Young Photographer of the Year Award and the Picture of the Year Award.