Photography.Book.Now winners

In the Garden, copyright of Beth Dow, and Grand Prize Winner, 2008

If you have not had a chance to browse the winners of the Blurb photo book contest Photography.Book.Now, you just might want to and see the possibilities of self publishing. The templates of many of the Print on Demand (POD) publishers can be limited, but within the available possibilities, good things can happen.

Also a good place to purchase some interesting books.

I know from my own personal experience, my first attempts now seem a little awkward. I knew where I was trying to get within the limitations of Blurb, but for my first book, I was not as familiar with the ins and outs. Kinda like Photoshop, to learn it, after you find out about the basics, you just have to start using it. For my Blurb book In Passing, I think now that I might design the cover differently. And for my Blurb book Places Amongst Us, I should not have chosen the 7 x 7″ format, as was might bit too small.

The nice thing about the POD technology, is that you can quickly change your self publishing project into a second edition with a completly differenct & revamped appearance.

Best regards, Doug Stockdale

Simon Roberts on Editing

Another little gem that Jorg Colberg pointed me to, was the article that Simon Roberts had complied about editing, both about his recent book Motherland (Russia) and about the process of editing in general. A thoughtful & recommended read for those who are wrestling with the process of editing one’s larger body of work into something meaningful.

I had been following Roberts work as I like his writings about photographing the “social” landscape, but I had missed this article.

Best regards, Doug Stockdale

Gregory Crewdson – Beneath the Roses

Jorg Colberg recently wrote (here) about Gregory Crewdson’s book, Beneath the Roses over on his blog Conscientious. I believe that Jorg is a bigger fan of Crewdson that I am, but I feel that Jorg gets the uneasy undercurrent I feel with Crewdson’s work, and Beneath the Roses in particular.

Best regards, Doug Stockdale

Robert Frank – Paris

Photograph copyright of Robert Frank

After purchasing and reading Robert Frank’s Paris, published by Steild in 2008, I have been hesitating to publish my book review. Part of my procrastination was purchasing a copy of Frank’s The Americans, published by Steild as part of their “Robert Frank Project”, as a baseline for comparison. And I am happy that I did buy The Americans, as it does make even more apparent the designer hack-job done on Frank’s Paris.

Hand made and Hand crafted

(Originally posted in Singular Images, 10/01/07)

I am starting to come to the realization that I am going to be making my first limited edition book in conjunction with someone from The Photophers Exchange, who is a custom box binder. 

I have been reading with great interest the series of articles in Photo-eye Review about book publishing.  Especially this last issue on self publishing with the links to the other artists who are undertaking these project. I do not believe that my Bad Trip – Sad Trip series has a large audience (commercial) appeal, but there probably is a small audience that would both appreciate the series as well as a fine custom hand made book which will also function as a complete portfolio of the project.

Robert Frank – The Americans

The Americans – copyright of Robert Frank

How one thing sometimes leads to another, as I had recently purchased a new Robert Frank book Paris while I was in Philidelphia and I figured it would be easy to relate Paris to The Americans without owning a copy of The Americans. In the fifty years since The Americans was published, I think that between all of my other books, I must have every image that was published in his book

I also know that there was the big bash about Steidl re-publishing The Americans, but I also figured that this was some big splashy uber book from the Germans. Not so!

So when I came across a couple of copies at one of my favorite book stores, I was impressed with what a manageable size the book is, measuring about 8-1/2″ x 7-1/2 and about 1″ thick. Nice, hand holdable and very readable. So I walked out of the book store with my impulse purchase of the day in hand.

Yes, in retrospect, I probably do (not) have every image from The Americans spread out in my book stacks, but that is difficult if not impossible to access. And it is really nice to have a classic photographic book that makes it so easy to look at the images in the proper sequence that the photographer had designed and layed out.

One thing to consider  is that it is now hard to envision this book and the reaction to it with the late 1950′s mind set, even when you do find those late 1950′s and early 1960′s reviews. We now look at these photographs as a bit dated in terms of historical perspective, but can still marvel at the crispness of his vision that is articulated in this collection of photographs.

Now this is a book to be enjoyed and to help keep what we do today as photogaphers in perspective. Now, of course, I have my own personal benchmark for my future article about another Robert Frank book - Paris.

Best regards, Douglas Stockdale

Updated 10-27-11: Turns out that I did not have all of the photographs from The Americans referenced elsewhere, more of the 80/20 rule: 80% of the photographs you find published from The Americans constitute only about 20% of the photographs of this body of work. So I choose to include some not as well known photographic pages to update my commentary.