Last Updated on 11/10/2025 by Chris Gampat
Photographer Jens Krauer is one that we’ve covered pretty extensively here on the Phoblographer. And this year, in a turning point in his career, he released his first photo book. In Plain Sight is a compilation of the street photography he’s done over the years. The book is in all black and white as Jens barely ever shoots in color. If I had a week, time to really think, and enough therapy, I could tell you a ont of really wonderful things about this book. At the same time, there are a few things that annoy me and that I wish the publisher did differently. Before I go on, though, I’ll be flat out honest with you: I’m biased here.
I am joined by Stella Kramer and Jamel Shabazz in doing the afterward statements at the end of the book. And with that said, I’ve been actively involved in its creation and even saw the digital version before it was printed. For a while, it sat on my living room table until I took it into my office to get a closer look.
Like most other photography books, the pages are mostly matte with just a slight sheen to them. In the right lighting, the photos look great. Though at the same time, I wonder if they really needed any sort of shimmer and glimmer to them. This is, after all, a black and white photography book. Full matte pages would’ve worked just fine — but that’s the photo editor inside of me talking.
Admittedly, sometimes when I receive books for review, I often wonder what the publisher is thinking. Similarly, when I walk into various photo museums, I wonder why the curators chose photos that anyone could’ve made instead of more artistic work to help people understand why photography is art. In many ways, you could say that I’m the problem and that I’m too forward-thinking. In other ways, I think that in the long term, I’ll be the one in the right.
This is a much longer way of saying that I don’t think that all of the images in Jens’s book should’ve been there and that’s only because of how the book splits so many images right down the middle. Luckily, the book’s spine can be worn down very easily, and it makes the images sit almost flat. I’ve only ever seen something like this with Mark Seliger’s books.
The photos inside are all about the people. Jens’s work is observational, cinematic, and really requires you to look around the entire frame to get what’s happening.
In Plain Sight isn’t a compilation of his best work, and I don’t think that it should be. Jens is still in his 40s and has lots of years in his career ahead of him. Instead of his best work, the photos really do make you curious about the folks in the frame. Where Bruce Gilden would call them characters, I think of them as people wearing costumes with a little bit of their true selves showing.
On my third look through of In Plain Sight, it finally occurred to me: you need to hold this book in your hands and not put it down plain and flat on the table. Once you do, then you can understand how minor details in a frame can really define the entire landscape of the photo. With that said, In Plain Sight is one of the first photo books I’ve seen in years that begs you to actually curl up with it instead of keeping it at arm’s distance on a coffee table. It beckons you to get closer. And only when you get closer do you understand how quietly wild all of the scenes are — like a party that you can see happening but not hear or feel until you enter the room.
If you’re a street photographer in 2025, this book joins a few others as the best street photography books that I’ve seen recently. Some of us might be in love with work like that of photographers like Willie Velazquez — whose photos to me feel more like an extrovert paying attention to small micro-transactions of emotions. But with Jens, he’s noticing on small details in a quiet and introverted way. If you’re more of an introvert, you’re probably going to relate more to the work in Jens’s book.
