Martin Bogren

Swedish photographer Martin Bogren (born 1967) spent the years 2013–15 in Italy creating this gorgeous and lyrical black-and-white photo-essay, his tribute to the country and the people he met on his travels. Bogren’s luscious images of everyday street scenes, anonymous passersby, languid smokers, extroverted pedestrians and remote silhouettes are suffused with an affectionate, soft-focus gaze, making them seem like long-lost, unattributed archival photographs from a vanished era. Beautifully designed, Italia is destined to become a photobook classic.

Bogren’s work became widely known in the mid-2000s with his book Ocean, which was shortlisted for Best Photobook in Arles 2009 and received the honorable prize for the Best Photobook in Sweden the same year. Other critically acclaimed titles by Bogren include Lowlands, published by Max Strom in 2011, and Tractor Boys, published by Dewi Lewis in 2013.