The Photobook Thread

[logan2z]

I haven't seen a Photrio thread dedicated to photobook collecting so I thought I'd start one.

Let's use this thread to discuss new photobooks you've purchased, share book reviews (photos of spreads, videos of flip-throughs encouraged), links to photobook collecting resources (blogs, review sites, YouTube flip-throughs and other book-related channels, etc), book sales, and anything else photobook-related you can think of.

I'll kick things off with news of an incredibly good book sale on now until June 23 from Yale University Press (no affiliation other than a regular customer). Books are 50% off site-wide (there are a few exclusions for out of stock books and pre-orders) and shipping is free. Probably one of the best sales I've seen in a long time and Yale University Press has published a huge selection of excellent photography and art books.

I just ordered five books (saved $130) but might go back and get a few more before the sale closes.

Yale University Press 50% Off Book Sale

{moderator's note: for extra clarity on the scope of this thread's subject, it may be useful to read the OP's post #163}

 

[images39]

Good thread idea. I've given up trying to repress my photo book collecting habit. My latest, just arrived, is Michael Kenna's "Forms of Japan:"


Dale

 

[MattKing]

For clarity, are you asking about published books that include mostly photographs?
I use "photobook" to refer to the type of product that you can get from an organization like Blurb to display and share your own photos.

 

[logan2z]

For clarity, are you asking about published books that include mostly photographs? .

Yes, that's what I'm referring to. That's a pretty common use of the term 'photobook'.

For example:

Announcing the Winners of the 2022 PhotoBook Awards

Celebrating the evolving narrative of the photobook, Aperture and Paris Photo present this year’s winning titles.

aperture.org

And

Home

aperture-photobook-club.mailchimpsites.com

 

[Pieter12]

Added Rodney Smith: A Leap of Faith.

 

[logan2z]

I've given up trying to repress my photo book collecting habit.

I don't try anymore either, it's hopeless

 

[Mike Lopez]

I haven't seen a Photrio thread dedicated to photobook collecting so I thought I'd start one.

Let's use this thread to discuss new photobooks you've purchased, share book reviews (photos of spreads, videos of flip-throughs encouraged), links to photobook collecting resources (blogs, review sites, YouTube flip-throughs and other book-related channels, etc), book sales, and anything else photobook-related you can think of.

I'll kick things off with news of an incredibly good book sale on now until June 23 from Yale University Press (no affiliation other than a regular customer). Books are 50% off site-wide (there are a few exclusions for out of stock books and pre-orders) and shipping is free. Probably one of the best sales I've seen in a long time and Yale University Press has published a huge selection of excellent photography and art books.

I just ordered five books (saved $130) but might go back and get a few more before the sale closes.

Yale University Press 50% Off Book Sale

Of all the people on this site, I believe that you are probably the most appropriate person (other than myself, I suppose) to start a thread like this. Great idea, and I'll be interested to see where this one goes.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

For W. Eugene Smith fans, Sam Stephenson's Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project and The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965 have been reissued, with added material, by the University of Chicago Press.

I have both, they cost me a small fortune at the time—found the Pittsburgh one in Paris in a small used book store totally devoted to photography—, but totally worth it.

W. Eugene Smith

About W. Eugene Smith from the University of Chicago Press website.

press.uchicago.edu

Stephenson's Gene Smith's Sink is also a great read, especially if you're into be-bop.

 

[logan2z]

For W. Eugene Smith fans, Sam Stephenson's Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project and The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965 have been reissued, with added material, by the University of Chicago Press.

I have both, they cost me a small fortune at the time—found the Pittsburgh one in Paris in a small used book store totally devoted to photography—, but totally worth it.

W. Eugene Smith

About W. Eugene Smith from the University of Chicago Press website.

press.uchicago.edu

Stephenson's Gene Smith's Sink is also a great read, especially if you're into be-bop.

Thanks for the info, I wasn't aware that these had been reissued. On my ever-growing list...

 

[images39]

For W. Eugene Smith fans, Sam Stephenson's Dream Street: W. Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Project and The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965 have been reissued, with added material, by the University of Chicago Press.

I have both, they cost me a small fortune at the time—found the Pittsburgh one in Paris in a small used book store totally devoted to photography—, but totally worth it.

W. Eugene Smith

About W. Eugene Smith from the University of Chicago Press website.

press.uchicago.edu

Stephenson's Gene Smith's Sink is also a great read, especially if you're into be-bop.

I picked up that Jazz Loft Project book when it was first published. Nice one... Eugene Smith lived those photos, and the mood of the late night jazz sessions comes right through.

Dale

 

[images39]

Some photo books have pretty astounding print quality. Just one example:


Dale

 

[Nitroplait]

After a recent visit to Tokyo, where I saw the two Masahisa Fukase exhibitions at MEM Gallery and TOP Museum, I purchased the fine and affordable exhibition catalogue "Fukase Masahisa 1961-1991 Retrospective".
These exhibitions really impressed me so I also picked up MACK Books reprint of Fukase's book "Family" in the museum bookshop. A very funny book, but probably not the best place to start to get to know his work.

I already own "Ravens" and "Sasuke" Now I only hope the book "Yohko" will be reprinted one day (soon).

 

[logan2z]

Some photo books have pretty astounding print quality. Just one example:


Dale

That book is supposed to be exceptionally well printed. Unfortunately, I've never seen a copy.

 

[Mike Lopez]

As far as print quality is concerned, one could do a lot worse than to check out anything from Lodima. The Brett Weston portfolio series is out of this world, with some of the best essays (by Roger Aikin) one could ever hope for, and with reproductions that could hang on museum walls.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

one could do a lot worse than to check out anything from Lodima.

I wish I hadn't... Now I'm longing for the complete set of the Lodima Press Portfolio Books...

 

[agentlossing]

I haven't seen a Photrio thread dedicated to photobook collecting so I thought I'd start one.

Let's use this thread to discuss new photobooks you've purchased, share book reviews (photos of spreads, videos of flip-throughs encouraged), links to photobook collecting resources (blogs, review sites, YouTube flip-throughs and other book-related channels, etc), book sales, and anything else photobook-related you can think of.

I'll kick things off with news of an incredibly good book sale on now until June 23 from Yale University Press (no affiliation other than a regular customer). Books are 50% off site-wide (there are a few exclusions for out of stock books and pre-orders) and shipping is free. Probably one of the best sales I've seen in a long time and Yale University Press has published a huge selection of excellent photography and art books.

I just ordered five books (saved $130) but might go back and get a few more before the sale closes.

Yale University Press 50% Off Book Sale

Thank you for the tip, I ordered Robert Adams's What We Bought. Been meaning to get some of his work, I'm quite partial to the New Topographics movement.

 

[logan2z]

Thank you for the tip, I ordered Robert Adams's What We Bought. Been meaning to get some of his work, I'm quite partial to the New Topographics movement.

Great! One can never have too many RA books IMO. One of my favorite photographers.

 

[BHuij]

When I got the NLPA volume 1 book last year, I was absolutely blown away by the work in there. I wasn't familiar with the contest or organization prior to that. It was a no-brainer to order volume 2, and my copy arrived a few weeks ago. It's just as good as volume 1.

No affiliation other than that I will keep buying them every year for the foreseeable future, and that this year I submitted 6 photos in hopes of making it into volume 3

 

[Pieter12]

Thank you for the tip, I ordered Robert Adams's What We Bought. Been meaning to get some of his work, I'm quite partial to the New Topographics movement.

I highly recommend the catalog from the Smithsonian's exhibit, American Silence. It is a pretty comprehensive overview of his work.

 

[logan2z]

I highly recommend the catalog from the Smithsonian's exhibit, American Silence. It is a pretty comprehensive overview of his work.

I second that. Even the paper used in the book is beautiful.

It's also worth checking out this video in which the curator of the exhibition, Sarah Greenough, and Robert Adams himself (by phone) discuss the book and exhibition.

 

[MattKing]

For the collector with impeccable taste:
Veritas Editions
Craig Huber's publications are absolutely amazing. And in many cases for those with an amazing budget.
His photography is pretty good too

 

[Mike Lopez]

I wish I hadn't... Now I'm longing for the complete set of the Lodima Press Portfolio Books...

Sorry/not sorry!

 

[logan2z]

As I was perusing the YUP site I came across two books that are not yet published but look to be interesting.

The first is Dorothea Lang: Seeing People, the catalog for an upcoming exhibition at The National Gallery of Art.

From the YUP web site:

An expansive look at portraiture, identity, and inequality as seen in Dorothea Lange’s iconic photographs

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) aimed to make pictures that were, in her words, “important and useful.” Her decades-long investigation of how photography could articulate people’s core values and sense of self helped to expand our current understanding of portraiture and the meaning of documentary practice.

Lange’s sensitive portraits showing the common humanity of often marginalized people were pivotal to public understanding of vast social problems in the twentieth century. Compassion guided Lange’s early portraits of Indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico from the 1920s and 1930s, as well as her depictions of striking workers, migrant farmers, rural African Americans, Japanese Americans in internment camps, and the people she met while traveling in Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Drawing on new research, the authors look at Lange’s roots in studio portraiture and demonstrate how her influential and widely seen photographs addressed issues of identity as well as social, economic, and racial inequalities—topics that remain as relevant for our times as they were for hers.

Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington

It's supposed to be published in mid-November.

The other is America and Other Myths: Photographs by Robert Frank and Todd Webb, 1955. Another catalogue for an upcoming, traveling exhibition, to be published in October.

From the YUP web site:

Robert Frank’s and Todd Webb’s parallel 1955 projects to photograph America are considered in the context of mid-twentieth-century American culture

In 1955 two photographers were awarded grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation to embark on trips across the United States. Robert Frank (1924–2019) drove coast to coast, photographing the highways, bars, and people that formed the basis for his widely admired publication The Americans (1958). Todd Webb (1905–2000) walked across the country, searching for “vanishing Americana and what is taking its place.”

Unaware of each other’s work, the photographers produced strikingly similar images of the highway, parades, and dim, smoky barrooms. Yet while Frank’s grainy, off-kilter style revealed many inequities of American life, Webb’s carefully composed images embraced clear detail and celebrated the individual oddities of Americans and their locales.

This revelatory book is the first to publish Webb’s 1955 photographs and connects these parallel projects for the first time. More than one hundred images accompany text illuminating Frank’s and Webb’s different perspectives and approaches to similar subjects and places; the difference in reception of Frank’s iconic work and Webb’s relatively unknown series; and the place of the road trip in shaping American identity at midcentury.

Published in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Looking forward to checking out both when they're released.

 

[logan2z]

For fans of Robert Adams, Steidl has just released the reissue of 'Los Angeles Spring'. It's one I've been waiting on for quite some time, although I'm a bit disappointed to find out that they want € 150 for it! Quite a hefty price for an unsigned, new release containing 56 images.

A few more reasonably-priced Steidl releases are scheduled to arrive in my mailbox tomorrow - Lee Friedlander's 'Pickup' and 'Workers - The Human Clay' and the reissue of Mary Ellen Mark's 'Ward 81'

Looks like I've hit my book limit for July earlier than expected. Thank goodness at least the shipping is free!

 

[Louis Nargi]

An interesting thread