Spirits and Ghosts: Journeys Through Mongolia - Hardcover

Julia Calfee brings artistic sensibilities as well as a humanitarian approach into her photos. Her subjects range from people living on the fringes of society to natural and urban landscapes. Working primarily in black-and-white, Calfee has photographed widely across Europe and Asia, with occasional explorations of New York. Her sensitivity toward her subjects is apparent in her photographs, which are at once straight forward and evocative. Her first book, published in 1995, focused on artists and their studios; subsequent projects have included a thoughtful look at the people who make their lives in the garbage dumps of Kuala Lumpur, an intimate investigation of New York's storied Chelsea Hotel and the residents living there prior to its sale, and an almost otherworldly series of photographs and sound recordings of Switzerland's melting glaciers, this work is titled "A Glaciers Requiem".

"Calfee and her camera have traveled the common ground of humanity from Mongolian reindeer herders and prisoners to wealthy Chinese urbanites, residents of the famed Chelsea Hotel and Malaysian garbage-heap dwellers. "What I seem to be drawn to, in spite of myself, are situations and people who are somehow living on an edge that will disappear," she says. "I'm drawn to, or even called to, places where there's a great deal of intense life that's in a state of change." Claire Sykes - Photographer's Forum
 
"Julia Calfee reveals the supernatural and Shamans who bridge the void between the worlds of the living and that of the spirits...These landscapes move you to imagine this, and that the Monkh Khoh Tenger (Eternal Blue Heaven), which once reigned over earth protecting the Mongol people, is hearing their wishes and receiving their communions" Antonin Kratochvil
 
"Although spirits and ghost are reality in Mongolia, they are nevertheless the object of a wealth of speculation and open to differing interpretations - a fact that makes the title of Julia Calfee's book on Mongolia particularly appropriate" Dr. Sendenjav Dulam, National University of Mongolia