I Want to Take Picture


Twin Palms Publishers, 2007 (Originally printed by Nexus Press, 1987)

Bill Burke grew up—like so many young boys—groomed for war. With the aid of movies, magazines, and TV, he envisioned himself somehow, somewhere, as being in combat. Yet when he was of military age he became terrified of it, and was relieved when he failed his draft physical. In 1982 Burke decided to go to Thailand and Cambodia to give himself the Southeast Asia experience that he managed to escape in the sixties. Part travelogue, part artist's book, this work records those experiences in collages that juxtapose contact sheets, portraits, diary excerpts, maps, reproductions of currency, newspaper headlines, and other ephemera.

- From The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century


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