Photography book review: Abelardo Morell - The Universe Next Door, By Elizabeth Siegel

Laura and Brady in the Shadow of Our House, 1994

Over the past 25 years, Abelardo Morell has earned international praise for his images that use the language of photography to explore visual surprise and wonder.

Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1948, Morell moved to the United States in 1962 and later studied photography at Yale University. He gained attention for intimate, black-and-white pictures of domestic objects from a child's point of view, inspired by the birth of his son in 1986, as well as images in which he turns a room into a giant camera obscura, projecting exterior views on to interior spaces. In more recent years, he has turned to colour, exploring the camera obscura with a painterly delight and developing a tent camera that projects outdoor scenes on to a textured ground. The first scholarly treatment in 15 years, this book examines Morell's career to the present day, including his earlier works and never before published colour photographs from the last decade.