latest additions to your library

Yammerman said:
After a thread on here that mentioned him I picked up William Mortensen : A Revival . Very interesting
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Yes, this guy like Steve Jobs never invented anything just was an innovator (well maybe Mortensen invented a few things but not patented). His books are NOT picture books, but technique books. His lighting innovation is still useful today. I first learned of him reading Barry Thornton's 'Edge of Darkness' (also not a picture book) that has an almost appendix and the end that mentions one of Mortensen's technique.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
Robert Hughes died today. He was one of the greatest art critics and historians of our time. I've had "The Shock Of The New", his history of modernism, for years. He also wrote a history of colonial Australia, "The Fatal Shore". Hughes was Australian.
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The Fatal Shore is a wonderful book. Such vivid writing. It must be twenty years since I read it but I can still remember some sentences, one describing the galahs flying in formation, alternately grey and then pink against the sky, and another describing the many rocks beneath the cliffs around Sydney Harbour, his analogy a biscuit with crumbs the size of houses having fallen from the cliffs. In the TV program of the Shock of the New his pieces to camera were descended from Kenneth Clark's Civilisation, right down to the rapid turns of the head to right and left as he made his strident points. He decried the bus loads of dentists from New Jersey in their Gucci loafers buying up modern art. Of Jeff Koontz he alluded to Socrates' dictum regarding the unexamined life not being worth living, paraphrasing him - the unlived life not being worth examining.
 
Got myself Rob Hornstra's "Safety First" today. It is entirely composed of negatives which were damaged by x-ray scanners during his stay in Grozny.
 
jippiejee said:
Ha. My girlfriend also bought a thick Martin Parr book today. I've never seen The Last Resort in my book store so always assumed it to be no longer available to the poor...
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It was reissued a year or 2 ago so you can now get it at regular the person's price. I picked one up last year. The collector in me would love to have first editions of these things, but prices are often just too crazy.
I'm happy for these reprints. And the quality is often better on the newer editions anyway.

Gary
 
A History of Photography from 1839 to the Present, The George Eastman House Collection, Taschen.

A number of Photofile books, to keep my editions of Saul Leiter and Jozef Koudelka company:
Ernst Haas
Lewis Carroll
Duane Michals
Paolo Roversi

And some Phaidon 55 mini books:
Werner Bischof
Josef Sudek
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
 
Papercut said:
MoMA's 75th anniversary edition of Walker Evans, American Photographs -- the original edition is too pricey to justify, at least until an unknown rich uncle dies and leaves me his fortune.
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I almost bought a first edition once, but got cold feet in the end.
My copy is a later edition from the 60's or 70's. I'll get this new version for its faithfulness in design to the original. How do you find the production quality? The MOMA description mentions "Digital" printing.

Gary
 
Gary,

The notes for the edition, written by Sarah Hermanson Meister, go into more detail on the methods and source material used. Here's the relevant paragraph:

"The advent of digital printing has once again transformed the methods of book production; the reproductions in this volume were made using the same duotone offset printing process as the fiftieth-anniversary edition, but now produced from digital files. Original source material continues to deteriorate or disappear, and the possibilities for digital mischief are extraordinary, making it ever more necessary to be scrupulous in characterizing the ways in which this edition takes advantage of current technology (however, any refinements with analog equivalents that were not previously deemed noteworthy are likewise here considered a routine part of the printing process). [details of restoring specific images edited out ... ] The purpose of these modifications is to emulate the general feel and the specific crops of the 1938 edition. Equally important is to balance this respect for the past with the potential for approximating ever-more-closely the cool beauty of prints made by Evans: careful observers might notice some reproductions capturing this better than ever before." (p. 204).

The reproductions look very good to me. There are some obvious differences image-to-image. Some are virtually grainless with very high contrast and minute detail, others have very large and obvious grain, lower contrast, less fine detail, etc. I'm guessing these differences are there in the original prints and edition, but I've never seen the original edition to say for sure how faithful each one is.



gns said:
I almost bought a first edition once, but got cold feet in the end.
My copy is a later edition from the 60's or 70's. I'll get this new version for its faithfulness in design to the original. How do you find the production quality? The MOMA description mentions "Digital" printing.

Gary
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Kevin,
Thank you very much for that. I've already placed my order.
This is one of those titles that many would consider a "Must Have".
If you haven't already, look for Walker Evans and Robert Frank, An Essay on Influnce, by Tod Papageorge. An interesting look at this book and Frank's, The Americans.

Gary
 
Gary,

You're more than welcome. It's definitely one of the Ur photo books, so I've been on the look out for a long time but just couldn't get up the nerve to spend the dosh for earlier editions. Saw the 75th anniversary at The Strand last week and decided not to wait any longer (and it's so reasonably priced too). I look forward to hearing your reaction once your copy arrives -- your eyes may be far more discerning than mine!

The Papageorge book is pretty pricey for 60 pages! But, it looks good (good choice of cover images to suggest the dialogue between the two men) -- I'll use inter-library loan to take a read. Thanks for the suggestion!



gns said:
Kevin,
Thank you very much for that. I've already placed my order.
This is one of those titles that many would consider a "Must Have".
If you haven't already, look for Walker Evans and Robert Frank, An Essay on Influnce, by Tod Papageorge. An interesting look at this book and Frank's, The Americans.

Gary
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Ansel Adams: Polaroid Land Photography. Very interesting to read of the level of research and experimentation that Ansel put into the topic of Polaroids. And boy do some of those Type 55 and Polacolor 2 type 808 images really shine.
 
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