The Big Book

[Bill Pierce]

The New York Times’ Lens section has an article on Gene Smith’s “Big Book” That project was done when I was spending a lot of time at Gene’s. Indeed, one of my functions was finding volunteer labor to help with the project which had taken over Gene's loft and most of Gene’s life. The article states that there is only one copy of the “Big Book.” There is only one copy at the Universiy of Arizona. There were two copies made. The second may have been in the hands of Romeo Martinez, the editor of Camera Magazine (In terms of the photographers discovered and published with superb reproduction, probably one of the finest photo magazines ever) who worked with Gene on the book and was going to try to find a publisher in Europe. Anyway, the book was amazing, although Gene would probably be furious that in the just published version proof prints for a book dummy were being shown as his work.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/w-eugene-smiths-big-book-his-way/

 

[jean-louis salvignol]

Bill, I rejoined you completely about "Camera". I have the chance to have dozens of numbers - of the last period - and under the pretext of storage or dedusting, I frequently return.

I would just add that if I have two reference books in photography, they are "Gypsies" by Joseph K. and Gene Smith "Dream street".