Every now and then, I am reminded that photo books, some of them, should come with a bit of a warning.

Actually, “warning” is the wrong word. But there should be a sticker or a sign that suggests, perhaps, viewers should be of a certain age. There’s something inside that speaks to memory.

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“Hunter Gatherer” by David Ricci
Published by MW Editions, 2025
Review by W. Scott Olsen

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Every generation has felt that the generation following them just doesn’t get it, doesn’t get the cultural references, doesn’t get the musical references. So much of the minutia of our generations gets lost and not passed down, there is always a small sense of bereavement.

For example, I teach at a college, and here in 2026 I’m sad to say, fully half of my first-year students have never seen The Princess Bride, cannot name all four Beatles, have no idea what Woodstock was. They, of course, have their own milieu, and when they get to be of a certain age, their children and grandchildren won’t get it either. My own parents would roll their eyes at my lack of cultural knowledge, too.

But there is a place throughout the United States and perhaps the world where stuff filters down, a bit like organic matter filtering down to the sea floor, which eventually becomes limestone and rises again in geologic time to become mountains as the tectonic plates shift. These places are the antique stores, the thrift shops, and elsewhere. Walk into one of them, and suddenly there’s table after table, shelf after shelf of stuff we remember, and oftentimes wish we didn’t.

It is, frankly, a kind of junk that nonetheless speaks to who we were. Some of it is worth preserving as a warning if not a joy.

Hunter Gatherer, the new book by David Ricci, is a wonderful, beautiful and troubling cacophony. Every page is packed with images from antique stores and their like. Every page is filled with toys and trinkets, lamps and pictures, jars and cans, many of them from even before my time, and all of them spark a bit of a memory, oftentimes cringe worthy in terms of the guilt they produce. And all of them displayed in full color.

Yes, that’s who we were.

Oftentimes, when talking about photography, we talk about the technical aspects of composition and image. We talk about creative use of light and shadow, or aesthetic results of lens choice. Ricci is a wonderful photographer whose documentary approach uses all these talents to make the images seem effortless. But spend a bit of time looking at what is included in the frame, closeness or distance from the subject, depth of field to isolate a subject, high or low point of view, and it’s clear the art is intentional and strong.

In an introduction by Cheryl Finley called “Another Man’s Treasure,” she writes—

In choosing the title “Hunter Gatherer”, Ricci asks both who and what is hunted. He has asserted that all photographers are hunter-gatherers. So too are antique dealers and their clientele, all of whom search antique malls, estate sales, thrift shops, and local auctions for vintage memorabilia that tells stories of this country’s complicated past. The quest for these objects is tied to their interest in collecting and safeguarding historical narratives.

Complicated past is right. This book is filled with objects which are excruciatingly racist or sexist. And alongside those is the insistent kitsch of religious memorabilia, portraits of Jesus, crucifixes and their variations. Alongside both are the toys and lamps and dolls and metal lunchboxes we used to think were cool (and perhaps they are again or still!).

In his artist statement, Ricky writes—

What first drew my attention were tableaus that reveal our ultra-consumerism: tables piled high with tools, toys, board games, trinkets, and costume jewelry; shelves packed with knickknacks; endless racks of clothes; booths overflowing with household goods, furniture, lawn ornaments, and bizarre, mysterious objects. Stuff. Lots of stuff. This chaos echoes what might be the American mantra—I own, therefore I am.

It’s an interesting proposition because, of course, everything in this book is up for sale. It’s no longer owned (except by the retailer). It’s been both discarded and saved. If you want a tattooed Marilyn Monroe awash in $100 bills, it’s here. If you want vintage posters, deer heads, lamps, Michael Jackson’s Thriller album, an informational flyer for George C Wallace, you’ll find them in these pages.

Compositionally, every page is filled with a great many objects. It could be just shoes, but there are hundreds. It could be those little plastic army men, a whole bunch of them all tangled (as they always were). While every page is composed so a viewer has the ability to focus in on one or two objects, it’s equally possible to look at the entire discordant symphony.

This book portrays evidence, evidence we might want to suppress at times, but nonetheless rings true to where we have been. The photography in here is documentary, but so well framed there are ironies and indictments galore. Only in an antique store would you find a small figurine of a nun kneeling in prayer over a Batman Pez dispenser. Only here would you see a silver platter holding a collection of syringes in front of a box marked National Casket Company.

Because I am the age I am, I look at these pages and find evidence of my own memory and the history of my generation and the one just before it. The feeling is both nostalgic and uncomfortable at the same time. I would imagine someone in their 20s or even 30s might look at this and wonder what strange alien planet these items come from, but there’s value there too. This book is an education as well as a spark to the memory.

Hunter Gatherer is the kind of book you open, smile, remember, groan, and sometimes want to close and put away but cannot. It is extraordinary, honest and true.

A note from FRAMES: Please let us know if you have an upcoming or recently published photography book.