Publications from Daylight

Book Details: HardcoverISBN-13: 9781954119642112 pages; 55 Photographs8 x 10 inchesForeword by Jill SterrettEssay by Lisa Stone*Books will ship in DecemberA reconsideration of Lewis Koch's seminal photographic work on vernacular architecture, Quiet Eccentricities: The Vernacular Seen presents mostly unpublished work made for a National Endowment for the Arts Photography Survey project which took place in southern Wisconsin, in the early 1980s. In addition to a key selection of the original images, an essay by curator and art historian Lisa Stone examines Koch's photographs of commonplace structures in relation to his early work which preceded the NEA project, and the later work which it in turn inspired.Drawing upon aspects of photography, sculpture, assemblage and text, Lewis Koch calls attention to the often unremarked upon elements of everyday life. Over the past fifty years, he has presented installations in garages, on kiosks and billboards, as well as in museums and galleries, in solo exhibitions internationally.  His work is held in permanent collections which include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Smithsonian Museum of American Art, National Gallery of Art, and many more.Jill Sterrett is Director of Collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Before her tenure in Wisconsin, she held leadership positions at the Smart Museum of Art (Chicago), and for 28 years at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Lisa Stone is an independent curator/collaborator, preservation consultant, and retired (2020) curator of the Roger Brown Study Collection, and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism, both at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC).  View Details
Book Details: HardcoverISBN-13: 978195411961196 pages; 30 Photographs9 x 13 inches$50 USLighting Director and Visual Collaborator: Lipe Borges*Books will ship in DecemberInvisible Threads is a collaborative portrait and narrative project that offers an intimate look into the lives of immigrants who have made Cape Cod their home. Created through a shared process between photographer Julia Cumes, lighting director Lipe Borges, and the subjects themselves, the portraits are intentionally constructed rather than photojournalistic, shaped through conversation, trust, and personal choice.Often understood primarily as a summer destination, Cape Cod is also one of the earliest landing points in the United States’ immigration history—a place shaped for centuries by arrival, labor, displacement, and reinvention. Drawing on this deeper historical context, the project connects contemporary migration stories to a much longer American narrative. Through carefully crafted portraits made in homes, workplaces, and meaningful personal spaces, Invisible Threads reflects resilience, identity, and the enduring human search for belonging. Extended captions drawn from in-depth interviews allow participants to shape their own narratives, centering dignity, agency, and authenticity.Julia Cumes is a South Africa–born, Cape Cod–based photographer whose work explores identity, migration, community, and human connection through collaborative, narrative-driven portraiture. Growing up in apartheid-era South Africa, she became aware early on of photography’s power to reveal truth, evoke empathy, and foster dialogue—an understanding that continues to inform her practice.Lipe Borges is a Brazilian-born photographer and lighting director based on Cape Cod. Borges brings a cinematic, narrative-driven approach to portraiture, using carefully constructed lighting environments to create images with emotional depth and psychological presence. View Details
Book Details: HardcoverISBN-13: 9781954119604112 pages; 60 Photographs6.75 x 9.5 inches*Books will ship in Decemberthe last post compiles the last photographs shared on social media by individuals who have passed away, accompanied by text detailing their images and deaths. It examines the aesthetics of vernacular imagery and explores perspectives on mortality and life, while investigating how images circulate in the age of digital sharing.This book is deliberately structured as an incomplete, tactile puzzle: it consists of 50 images re-photographed from illuminated screens, each with a corresponding text piece. Half of the book presents a sequence of images that invite ambiguous, fictional narratives. In contrast, the other half contains only text that reveals the true stories behind each photograph and death. The book’s unique mirrored structure—where the first photo corresponds to the last text piece, and vice versa—requires the viewer to actively navigate between the two halves using small navigation markers on each spread. This design ignites touch, interruption, and attention, foregrounding the book's physicality and pacing as an experience that emerges only through direct engagement.By separating images and texts, the book creates distinct layers of fiction and reality, forming an intimate zone of inquiry in which readers can explore the mysterious connections/disconnections between the depictions of life and facts of death and construct their own meanings as they flip through the pages.Tianqiutao Chen is an artist and educator working in China and the United States. He received an MFA in Photography and an MA in Art + Design Education from Rhode Island School of Design. Chen’s work has been exhibited widely, including at the Photographic Center Northwest (Seattle, USA), Center for Photography at Woodstock (Woodstock, NY), Modern Art Oxford (Oxford, UK), Minsheng Art Museum (Beijing, China), Sarajevo Photography Festival (Sarajevo, BiH), DongGang International Photo Festival (Yeongwol, South Korea), and Copenhagen Photo Festival (Copenhagen, Denmark), among others. His work was selected for the 2022 Critical Mass Top 50 and the 2025 URBAN Photo Awards Winners Shortlist for the Projects & Portfolios Category. His photobook won the 2017 Lucie Photo Book Prize for the Independent Publishing Category. View Details
Book Details: HardcoverISBN-13: 9781954119550164 pages; 136 Photographs7.5 x 9 inches$50 US Foreword by Phila Lorn*Books will ship in DecemberFamily Preserves: Home-Cooked Stories from Immigrant Kitchens is a visual anthology spotlighting the cultural identities of immigrant American families through food, memory, and tradition. Photographer and writer Cielito Mercado Vivas traveled across six states, documenting thirteen families with roots around the world through intimate kitchen portraits, extensive interviews, and accompanying narrative essays. Through these multigenerational stories, Vivas explores food as a source of comfort, a vessel for cultural inheritance, and a battleground for assimilation. Together, the stories reveal the complex landscape of immigrants and their children building lives in America.Cielito Mercado Vivas is an award-winning travel and portrait photographer and the author of Family Preserves. Her work unpacks the human condition, capturing the essence of communities and individuals across the globe. Born and raised in Philadelphia to immigrant parents, her diverse upbringing sparked a fascination with different cultures. She has since called New York City and Barcelona home, experiences that have further shaped her curiosity and passion for storytelling. Through her work, she aims to illuminate the soul of her wide range of subjects, from cooks to iconoclasts to neighborhoods. Her photography has been published nationally and internationally.Phila Lorn is a Cambodian American chef from Philadelphia and co-owner of the acclaimed restaurants Mawn and Sao. In 2025, he won the prestigious James Beard Award for Emerging Chef and was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs.  View Details