T.O.P. 2008 Bestsellers

I can only count books that TOP readers order through Amazon, but by that accounting, readers purchased 360 copies of the Steidl reprint of Robert Frank's The Americans, based on our review, and 239 copies of Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs (the latter count includes Q4 2007) based on this review. Those were "our" best sellers this past year. I think those two were the only books that sold more than 200 copies, although numerous books sold between 100 and 200. Probably the most surprising were that 119 people bought 2008's second printing of Saul Leiter's Early Color (a bit of an acquired taste for some people, I should think, although we did talk it up quite a lot. The first printing was January, 2006).

I think the most popular technical books were Minimalist Lighting by Kirk Tuck and The Moment It Clicks by Joe McNally, each of which sold a handful less than 100 copies to TOP readers.

The big surprise, book-sales-wise, was of course Fred Herzog's fine Vancouver Photographs, a book of color pictures taken mostly in Western Canada in the 1950s and 1960s that had remained unknown until relatively recently. Following our review, the book jumped from #2,200 or so to #1 on Amazon Canada overnight. TOP readers snapped up 143 copies of that one before it unfortunately sold out within just a few days; many people were left with their orders unfilled. Fortunately you can still see many of Fred's photographs at the Equinox Gallery website.

Fred Herzog, Winner Café, Portland

And don't forget—no matter where you live, you could do a similar project in your own town or neighborhood. Someday, everything that is ordinary and unremarkable to you will be distinctive of this time period, and many of your pictures of things we take for granted today will be of things or people that have changed or gone. No one will ever take a photograph in 2008 again, for instance—think of that.

________________________

Mike

Send this post to a friend

Comments

[JH]

This was great: "no matter where you live, you could do a similar project in your own town or neighborhood."

And who can say which or these long-term projects results in a masterpiece, and which are just a lot of work? Doing the work has to be a reward in itself.

[Frans]

Mike writes: "Someday, everything that is ordinary and unremarkable to you will be distinctive of this time period, and many of your pictures of things we take for granted today will be of things or people that have changed or gone." This is very true. I still regret not having made more photos of my home town from the mid sixties on, the time that I bought my first camera. Within ten years, town planners destroyed the town centre and its character, and it was too late. Even trying to find photos of the town by others that were made in the '50's or '60's is difficult. Postcards from that time are often the only alternative. See my site: http://www3.telus.net/fspeur/Heiloo (sorry, the text is mostly in Dutch). Here in Edmonton, Canada, I'm starting to make more photos of the more interesting parts of the city.

[Tom K.]

"Someday, everything that is ordinary and unremarkable to you will be distinctive of this time period, and many of your pictures of things we take for granted today will be of things or people that have changed or gone. No one will ever take a photograph in 2008 again, for instance—think of that."

I read a lot of articles on the web and every once in a while someone writes something with such a simple and pure clarity that it makes me stop dead in my tracks and think....YES! Mike's words I posted above did just that. I copied and pasted them into my word processor and chose a huge font and printed it.

Inspiring words to live by.

[cjg of eroticalee]

I'm glad to see that Mr. Herzog's book has sold well.If any of your readers would be interested in another fine photographer from Vancouver try this chap. http://alexwaterhousehayward.com An interesting gentleman.I agree with Mr. Kazuba.Very good Mike.

[Paul Butzi]

A friend of mine who lives in Vancouver reports: "I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the Vancouver Art Gallery Store has "lots" (their words) of copies of Vancouver Photographs in stock.

http://www.vanartgallery.bc.ca/visit_the_gallery/gallery_store.html

- Rob"

[Stuart Hamilton]

That last paragraph, Mike, that's a gift. Yeah, our lives strangely slide away unnoticed; wake up, look around, take it in. Now that's something to carry from one year into the next. Thanks.

[Bahi]

Trying to see exactly which things will become the most interesting and the most aesthetically pleasing once ubiquity exits and makes them all truly visible again _seems_ to get easier after a while but can lead to photographs that no one can understand at the time they're taken.

Kids using a Wii console, lit by the light of a huge LCD screen, people using click-wheel iPods, the last shoppers at Woolworth's here in the UK. The most common cars parked on the street becoming things of exotic beauty once again surprisingly quickly. A passer-by asked me the other day why, during dusk's mixed light, I was photographing a high street that included a big, illuminated hoarding telling all the passing motorists that "Scratch cards make great Christmas presents". My response was along the lines of your post but not as well expressed and prompted a genuine pity in her that was visible past the immediate nervousness - she judged my condition serious, permanent and potentially detrimental to her safety but moving nevertheless. That's what we have to put up with. It'll be worth it one day. :)

[Abbazz]

Happy new year to TheOnlinePhotographer and its captain.

There have been many exhibitions of Fred Herzog's work lately: at the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2007, then in early 2008 at the Equinox Gallery and Laurence Miller Gallery in New-York, then during last Summer, at the Canadian Cultural Center in Paris. Right now, a big Willy Ronis/Fred Herzog exhibition is taking place at the Galerie du Chateau d'Eau in Toulouse, France. Here is the link (in French):
http://www.galeriechateaudeau.org/

Not bad for an "unknown" photographer...

Cheers!

Abbazz

[Robert Billings]

How many copies of that great photo book "Hot Chicks With Douchebags" were sold at your suggestion? Count me as one and sure enough it was a big hit on Christmas morning.

[Mike J.]

Robert,
SEVEN. Ha! I'm amazed....

Mike J.

[Ade]

No one will ever take a photograph in 2008 again

No, but I will probably still be postprocessing digital image files from 2008 in ten years time, if that helps. And I didn't take as many this year as previously.

(Assuming I can still read them then, of course, which may well not be the case.)

[robert e]

Happy New Year to Mike, TOP and friends!

And, again, thank you. The research and posts and discussions about photo books would probably make TOP a valuable resource all by itself, never mind all the other great stuff that goes on here.

And while looking, again, for a copy of Early Color, I learned that Steidl has just published Saul Leiter's Early Black and White, while Thames and Hudson intends to add Leiter to its "Photofile" series of small paperback monographs this springs.