No Eire

Regarding yesterday, Geoff did feel a little sheepish that the Bruce Davidson book, Circus, has gone out of print already. It's partially my fault, because I've had that review in the queue for a month. I blame Steidl, too, whose distribution is starting to seem a little suspicious to me—like somebody somewhere is playing games, or there's a power struggle going on somehow, or—something. Maybe they just have production irregularities or problems with the pipelines. I don't know. But it seems I get jerked around a lot with Steidl titles going in and out, and in and out of print all the time.

Bruce Davidson is a photographer you should know about, if you don't already, unless his social documentary style is just too far from your own visual interests. I can see how that might be. He's on my list of "100 Photographers You Should Know About," though. I think the best place to start is probably England/Scotland 1960. (It's a Steidl book too, so please don't blame me if it goes away tomorrow and then comes back again next week.) Some of Davidson's work is too "project-oriented" for my taste, in the words of one of our readers, like an (over-) extended magazine assignment. And I have to admit that I never clicked with his "big and important" book, East 100th Street. It's always been a bit too blacks-by-a-white-guy to me (see if you can find Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective in your local library for a far more engaging look at  black communities and culture in New York City and elsewhere—that one would make my all-time top ten list of favorite photo books). I feel that some percentage of the pictures in East 100th Street have a clinically over-descriptive quality that lend the subjects something of the feel of stuffed fauna in a museum diorama. It's funny (as in funny-peculiar) that would be true, too, because most of Bruce Davidson's 35mm work has the appealing grabshot quality of life caught on the fly, the aesthetic of the "casual-but-intense glance" that I personally like so much.

England/Scotland 1960 is more wide-ranging and lyrical that some of Davidson's more focussed, project-oriented books...which, oddly, makes it more consistent in feel to me. Bear in mind that I have a tendency to like minor masterpieces as well or better than more ambitious and politically relevant ones; I like Cannery Row better than East of Eden and First Love and Sketches from a Hunter's Album better than Fathers and Sons—and Sherwood Anderson better than F. Scott Fitzgerald—and I suspect my affection for England/Scotland 1960 is another, similar case. So beware of that.

But it's a very fine book, easy to like. Given what day it is today, I sure wish it were called "England/Scotland/Ireland 1960." Alas, no Éire. But Happy St. Pat's to all you Irish, and all you honorary Irish.

I also like Bruce Davidson: Portraits a lot. It's out of print too, like nearly everything.

Mike

P.S. Maybe I should write a list of the top ten or twenty books you can't buy—favorites from my shelves that aren't available any more. It might be a little frustrating for you that you can't get them, but then again, who knows? Maybe it would help encourage a publisher or two to reprint one or two of them. And that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Send this post to a friend

Comments

[Wilhelm]

That image you reproduced (young girl with a kitten and backpack) has always been one of my favorites -- it almost breaks my heart!
After Gordon Parks Harlem pictures, the "East 100th Street" portfolio seems almost insipid and amaterish.

[Quang-Tuan Luong]

It could be that Steidl is, hmm, experimenting with distribution. Before Tina Barney's The Europeans went out of print, they offered trade edition copies at $600 labeled "last remaining stocks of first printing". This was at the same time they issued a second printing of Early Color that by all accounts was entirely identical to the first printing (with no means to identify it).

[robert e]

Whether you make that list or not, Mike (and I hope you do), I wish there was a way to get to all the classic TOP lists from the main blog page (or a more obvious way). They are a fine, useful and endlessly entertaining resource. I'd be happy to help track down the URLs.

[Sean]

That shot just happens to be his favourite

"There was a great deal of mystery to her. I didn't know where she had come from, and I didn't get her name, but there was something about that face - the hopefulness, positivity and openness to life - it was the new face of Britain."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jan/04/photography

Sláinte Mhath

Sean

[Mats]

I would love to see this list!
100 Photographers You Should Know About

Mats

[Andrew Lamb]

The cover photo of England/Scotland 1960 is reputed to be a personal favourite of Davidson's. He talks about it, and how he took it, in an interview in the Guardian newspaper (UK):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jan/04/photography

[karl]

From Dublin, Happy St. Pat's to you too Mike!!!! Have a good one.

[Stan B.]

How about several smaller lists exemplifying various genres or motifs- old, or new. Whatever the decision, the week shouldn't pass where at least one book and one photographer doesn't get highlighted, which is probably the case anyway...

[J. Claude Evans]

Thanks for the Minor White tip! It is a beautiful book. Minor clearly went out of style, but his photography is superb, and anyone interested in spiritual dimensions in photography should get to know him as deeply as possible. I have Windowsill Daydreaming, and have loved it deeply for some 30 years now.

[scott kirkpatrick]

The collection mania is starting to show up explicitly at Amazon. I was looking at Danny Lyon's upcoming "Memories of Myself," which is an off-putting title. But the contents are very promising -- short photoessays that I remember, but which never made it to book length. For example, the group of Appalachian kids from the near North side of Chicago that he was shooting in 1965. And there's an interview with the late Hugh Edwards. But both the blurbs on the book stressed how valuable first editions of his 1960-70's work has become, how Martin Parr places two of his books in his personal pantheon, and how collectible this release is certain to be. Gaaah. I just want to know if the reproductions are good, and what voices will I hear in the text.

Well, I bought it (linking from this site), and I fully expected to see at the bottom of the page that the folks who visited this site also considered purchasing a Leica Safari kit. No luck on that.

scott

[Tom Fenwick]

England/Scotland 1960 is another of my favorites, brought home to the UK from Barnes and Noble in Seattle... I much prefer it to Frank's London/Wales from a few years before.

Since you've covered two of very top picks in the last week or two (An English Eye was the other) how about having a look at my "if I could only keep one" choice - Philip Perkis' "The Sadness Of Men"?

Tom