The Online Photographer

Best Sellers of 2009

Here are the ten books that were the most popular among readers buying through our U.S. and U.K. Amazon links in 2009.

It's not easy to count, but I would guess that you—a collective "you"—bought roughly 5,000 different titles in 2009. By far the lion's share of those titles sold between one and ten copies each. A few, however, mainly because of reviews we published, far outpaced the average.

Don't think, however, that we can necessarily drive sales on purpose. Some of the books I "plugged" in 2009 didn't do well with readers. To give you a concrete example, of the four books I recommended two days ago, on Tuesday, Thomas Ruff's jpegs sold six copies, and First Light sold 54 copies. Your collective taste and interests play a big part in what does well.

In general, less expensive books tend to sell more than more expensive ones; technical books tend to sell better than picture books, because they're seen as being more practical and taste plays less of a part; and there are some cultural variations: Simon Roberts' We English and Jane Bown's Exposures sold much better in the U.K. than in the U.S., and books of U.S. western landscape photography, beloved of Americans, generally leave European readers unimpressed.

The number of copies sold follows each title. The number should be considered approximate, because I got lazy and did not check sales of these titles from Amazon Germany and Amazon Canada.

The list:

1. Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski (Museum of Modern Art) (U.K. link) (466 copies purchased). By far our best-selling title, probably because I named it as one of my all-time favorite photography books and the "basic primer" that I think anyone who is seriously interested in photography should own. A fine, simple, discursive introduction to the history of accomplishment in the medium, effortlessly (and painlessly!) incorporating a great number of accepted critical principles, and providing a de facto object lesson in how a great connoisseur approaches fine photographs.

2. Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) by  Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe (Peachpit Press) (U.K. link) (203 copies purchased).

Gary Stochl by Peter Thompson

3. On City Streets: Chicago, 1964-2004 by Gary Stochl (Center for American Places) (U.K. link) (138 copies purchased). Brought to your—and our—attention by Ken Tanaka, this modest little book was extremely popular with our readers. Gary Stochl worked for many decades in complete obscurity before being discovered and championed by photographer Bob Thall of Columbia College Chicago.

4. Landscape Beyond: A Journey into Photography by David Ward (Argentum [U.K.] / Aurum Press [U.S.]) (U.K. link) (136 copies purchased). 

Greenberg Gallery's Eye Mind Spirit marked the 100th anniversary of White's birth

5. Eye Mind Spirit: The Enduring Legacy of Minor White by Minor White, Peter Bunnell, and Nathan Lyons (Howard Greenberg Gallery) (134 copies purchased). Now out of print.

6. Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting (3rd Edition) by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua (Focal Press) (U.K. link) (118 copies purchased). Longtime classic that is probably the top-ranking basic text about the fundamentals of lighting.

7. Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography by our friend Kirk Tuck. (Amherst Media) (U.K. link) (116 copies purchased in 2009). The only repeat champion on this year's list, Minimalist Lighting was also one of 2008's top sellers.

8. The Printed Picture by Richard Benson (Museum of Modern Art) (U.K. link) (114 copies purchased). Our Book of the Year 2008. A great basic introduction to the many types of photographic prints and reproduction methods, notable for its abundant illustrations. 

Erwin Olaf, The Hallway, 2005, featured in PHOTO:BOX

9. PHOTO:BOX by Roberto Koch (Thames & Hudson [U.K.] / Abrams [U.S.]) (U.K. link. Note that you have to search "Photobox" in the U.K., with no colon.) (91 copies purchased). A particularly fine—and inexpensive—sampler of excellent photographs by many different photographers, with commentary of a surprisingly high standard. Translated from the Italian.

10. Photowisdom: Master Photographers and Their Art by Lewis Blackwell (PQ Blackwell) (U.K. link) (77 copies purchased). Another, more sophisticated sampler, featuring more "hot right now" photographers, who made their own selections from their own work. The most deluxe of the books on this list, and a good bargain for the asking price.

• • •

Hard to know when to stop the festivities—the next ten titles on the list are as interesting as these. But we gotta stop somewhere, and I'm a base ten kinda guy. Happy New Year's Eve to all, and please drive carefully tonight whether you imbibe or not!

Mike

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Images are Meant to be Shared

By Joe Cameron

Just wanted to add a contrarian view to the book value vs. book use discussion. Probably will gain me the wrath of thousands and possibly even get me banned from TOP for six months (book lover that Mike is).

I am a believer that books should be used, and by "used" I mean alongside a pot of dark coffee or perhaps a bottle of cheap Merlot (heavy stainers, both). And handled a lot!

I am amused by those who keep their newly bought books sealed in the original shrink-wrap or even paper dust jackets. Reminds me of families I knew in the 'fifties who bought high-quality upholstered chairs and then sealed them with thick plastic slip covers. A Maserati, if driven long enough and hard enough (because you love cars and you love to drive) will fall apart, regardless of care and maintenance. All things decay in time, and faster the more they are used.

Shown here is a photo of three books I highly value—Walker Evans' American Photographs (1938 edition, covers separated from book), Robert Frank's The Americans (1969 edition, cover missing) and Rene Burri's Die Deutschen (1962 edition, cover separated). All were in good to excellent condition when I acquired them. But years of loving (yes, loving) viewing in my hands and friends' hands and the hands of hundreds of students in my photo classes have given them the look of age. I never thought twice about tossing these and many other books in the center of a classroom table and encouraging students to "have at it" with some magnificent and inspiring photographs—no white gloves here. Don't get me wrong, I always asked students to treat the books with care, but as I said, time and use and more than a few grubby fingers have left their marks. I have no regrets. To paraphrase an ad, books may increase in market value, but the images are priceless. And images are fundamentally meant to be shared. I might add that the photographs in these books are just as clear and accessible today as they were right off the press.

By the way, if you've never seen Rene Burri's Die Deutschen, I would suggest you try to get access to a copy. Its format is nearly identical to The Americans and, in my opinion, much of its photography is the equal of Frank's book. And if you were my neighbor, I'd gladly share it with you over a six pack and a plate of nachos.

Joe

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Featured Comment by Neil "The Wheel" Clarkson: "A closed book teaches no one."

The Photo Book Investment Portfolio

I know I said yesterday that I don't buy or recommend photo books as investments, and I truly don't, but the conversation in the comments got me to thinking about something.

You might remember the story I've told of my onetime friend Jim S., a fine photographer in his own right. Jim was in the habit of purchasing one original art photograph per year, on his birthday. My memory for numbers is inherently weak (what do they call it?—innumeracy, I think), but I believe that his collection numbered about 20 photographs when I knew him. I only saw the collection once, and my memory of it (uncharacteristically this time, because I have a protean memory for pictures) is also hazy, but I believe it included such highlights as an Ansel Adams, a Cartier-Bresson, and an Edward Weston—big-name photographers, anyway. It's been fifteen years and more since I've seen or talked to Jim, but if his collecting habit is still in place, his collection must number 35 prints, or a little more, and I'm going to guess that its current worth is many times the dollar amount he has invested in it.

So here's what I was musing about yesterday. If you're relatively young—in your 20s, say, or early 30s—I'll bet that if you bought yourself just one photography book every month, and kept adding to that library throughout your life, that investment, by the time you reach retirement age, would outperform every other investment you might have—whether it's your house, or stocks and bonds, or what have you.

A rather dog-eared copy of this book, on sale now for $6,500. Only the occasional book will appreciate like this—a place in Parr and Badger and in Roth, plus a tangential interest for collectors of New Yorkiana, keep interest in this title high

True, some conditions would have to be met. You'd have to keep up with what's happening in the world of photography, and you'd have to have, or develop, a sense of bookcraft—the telltales of well-made books. You'd have to buy original monographs (not reissues, or retrospective exhibition catalogs, or historical figures, or demotic scenic or travel photographers, or how-tos), and it would help if you were interested in emerging or less established photographers in the dynamic phases of their careers.

I'm just...you know
I'm honestly not suggesting you do this—certainly, not purely as an investment. Even if you did, the requirements of caring for a growing library are considerable. Books take up lots of space, they are famously difficult to move, and they are vulnerable—to fire and flood especially, but also to dust and pests and quotidian damage and so forth. (A drop to the floor and a bad bump on a corner could cost you $100 or more, which is, admittedly, a ridiculous concept.) I really do think such a library would have to be something you'd enjoy owning and actively using (does anyone recall my long-ago article "How to Read a Photographic Book"?), not just a set-aside for your retirement. I'm not sure how possible it would be to buy books just as investments, without somehow vectoring in on your personal interests as well.

But...well, you know. If...then. I'm just sayin'.

A post I'm planning in the New Year is "Great Books You Can't Buy"—some favorites of mine that are no longer available without a search, considerable expense, some luck, or all three. It's an interesting list.

Mike

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Quote o' the Day

"Photography is a journey
-with no conceivable destination."

(from "HBB in Phoenix, Arizona," a participant in the Nikonians Forums. Amen, brother.)

Mike

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Featured [partial] Comment by Mark Hobson: "The quote has the profound sound of a deepity—a statement that has two meanings, one of which is true but superficial, the other which sounds profound but is meaningless."

Strong Buy Recommendations

I know, probably the exact wrong time of year for this post, what with many peoples' pockets and purses depleted by the holidays. You know what they say: oh well.

Not long ago I got an email from a reader who said he'd come into a little windfall and wanted to pick up some photo books he'd missed, including TruthBeauty, an exhibition catalog from a show of Pictorialism at the Vancouver Art Gallery that Geoff reviewed a while back. The book is now out of print. Although there are probably better bargains out there if you look hard enough, used copies on Amazon are going for a low of $60 to a high of $262.28, and new copies start at $245. When we reviewed it, you could buy it new for $37.80.

And that was not even a year ago—February of this year to be precise.

I need to point out (again) that I don't buy photo books as financial investments, and, despite the stock-market language in the title of this post, I don't recommend them as such. The only concern I have with photo books appreciating quickly in value is that they can price themselves out of reach; what you can afford new at one time might be much harder to swallow even a year or two later. The example I always use is Roth's Book of 101 Books, which I wanted (and still want) but which was "too expensive" at $110 or so when I saw it new. So I held off. Now look at it. (Although, note, these prices are much lower than they were about 14 months ago, when the cheapest used price was in the $900+ range.)

And, of course, I can't guarantee that any particular book will appreciate in value. I'm happy to predict any event that will happen beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this—I'm willing to tell you exactly what will happen in 2110, for instance—but, for events closer to now, I disavow any crystal-ball-gazing ability. You'll recall I thought Saul Leiter's Early Color was in the "get it while you can" category, because of the first printing's spotty availability and its very volatile pricing early on, but then the publisher ran an evidently much bigger second printing and you can get it new to this day. (Still a great book, of course.)

Anyway, all that said and clear and set, here are three books I think are hot buys right now and are likely to get harder to come by in the future:

  

South East by Mark Steinmetz

Mark Steinmetz, of Athens, Georgia, is undeniably a rising star of art photography thanks to his eloquent recent books; the slightly earlier companion to this one, South Central, is out of print, and its price is rising. 

Witness Number 6 by Lee Friedlander

Lee and Maria Friedlander's affectionate portrait of Armenian-American sculptor Raoul Hague (born Haig Heukelekian in Constantinople) who lived the fully examined life in a cabin in upstate New York, is the sixth in Nazraeli's "Witness" series, earlier numbers of which are getting devilishly difficult to obtain. Witness Number 7, pairing pictures by the poet of darkness and abandonment Todd Hido with Leon Borensztein portraits from the '80s, is also still available. Earlier numbers, good luck.

jpegs by Thomas Ruff (U.K. link)

One of a celebrated coterie of students of Bernd and Hilla Becher that includes Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, and Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff has become one of the leading lights of German art photography. His jpegs is the culmination of a monumental project that looks like it will be remembered as an early milepost of the digital transition. There is also a much more expensive limited edition version.

•     •     •

Finally, though perhaps not in the art-hothouse category of books whose value is likely to rise, I got next year's delightful handmade calendar from Charles Cramer the other day (thanks very much, Charlie, if you're reading this!), and he mentioned that the book of Yosemite landscapes he did with Karl Kroeber, Scot Miller, Mike Osborne, and Keith S. Walklet from their show at the Ansel Adams Gallery has been selling like crazy and is almost gone. If you want it, better not count on a second edition. The book's called First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite's Wilderness. Here's the U.K. link.

-
(If you can't see this video, please go here.)

Mike

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Featured Comment by Jeff: "I agree with the philosophy of buying books because you love them, not for the investment. But, after a few decades of collecting, I'm amazed at the appreciation of some now much-sought-after books.

"When I bought from book dealers, I always kept the purchase price penciled inside. I have some books that are marked under $100 that would now fetch many thousands.

"Nice to know, but I still love them and have no intention of selling. It is smart, however, to get a collection appraised from time to time, if for no other reason than to maintain sufficient insurance.

"If one is interested in investment, however, it's of course important to keep the book...and the cover...in great condition. A book with a damaged or lost dust jacket could easily lose 75% of its value. A signed copy can also be important, if down the road the photographer is worthy. For living photographers, I've often taken books to exhibits or lectures, calling in advance to see if they have time and would be willing to sign.

"I used to come across some real bargains in old book stores here and overseas. But, merchants have become increasingly savvy about book values, and of course the smaller stores are now hard to find."

ADDENDUM by Jeff: "Given the discussion on book values in the comments, I'll add a bit to my post.

"While I don't plan to sell my collection, I need a realistic insurance value: for me if there's ever a loss or natural disaster; and for my potential heirs. I think this is wise for anyone having valuables and collectibles, especially if they are not commonly known items to others, including insurance companies and heirs. Toward this end, I used to have the book dealers I trusted to give me a written estimate based on their current sales. I would have them update this every five years or so.

"Last year, in preparation for a big move, I decided to send my list (with dealer notations on particulars, including condition) to an auction house in New York that specializes in photo book sales. This gave me another real world valuation, without any emotion attached.

"As I said earlier, though, the books are here for me to enjoy, not to sit idly on a shelf waiting for sale. But, if circumstances change, I'm better prepared."

A Modest Suggestion

Here's a modest suggestion for a self-assignment. If you have a "peeve pathology," as defined in the previous post...explore it. Embrace it. Work with it. Emphasize it and exaggerate it. See what you can do.

Hate noise? Find a really noisy camera and use it at its worst settings for a while. See what you can do with noise. Find the subjects that noise works with. Keep going until you take a flagrantly noisy picture you really honestly like.

Hate tilted horizons? Make yourself take a thousand pictures with tilted horizons. And not just a little off-kilter, but a lot. Really look at 'em, and see what works, what doesn't. Can you take a good picture with a tilted horizon?

Hate wide-angle distortion? Get a really wide lens that has tons of distortion and see what you can do with it. Play around. Sooner or later you'll take a picture that works.

Something always works.

You might not think that I could do that with "bad" bokeh, but my late friend Phil Davis actually had a picture he'd framed and hung on his wall that was mainly notable for spectacularly bad ni-sen (double-line) bokeh. It was taken with some sort of ancient achromat. There was a church steeple in the distant background, and the ni-sen was so bad that the lens had actually rendered two images of the steeple, like the lens was cross-eyed. Phil liked it. It was an unusual effect, to say the least.

I wonder if peeve pathologies can be "cured" in this manner?

What I'd really have to do in the spirit of this suggestion would be to process a whole bunch of pictures going heavy on the saturation and vibrance sliders, giving everything that excessive, unsubtle, found-on-the-web dinosaur-planet color palette that I just hate. With lots of sickly yellow-greens, and day-glo reds never found in nature. The thought gives me a twinge of physical revulsion. I should try it. (I won't, but I should.)

Although, on second thought, maybe that wouldn't be in the proper spirit of the exercise, because I could always undo it all later!

Anyway, just a thought.

Mike

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Question from Paul Logins: "Can 'good' or 'bad' bokeh be defined? Is there a majority consensus in the photography community or is it really in the eye of the beholder?"

Mike replies: Someday I'm going to do a visual post illustrating what I consider to be "good" bokeh, but for now that's going to have to wait.

However, as far as I'm concerned everything is in the eye of the beholder, not just bokeh, but certainly including bokeh. One of the nice things about photography as a pursuit/hobby is that we own our own practices as well as our own tastes...in the end, nobody can tell us what to do or what to like. People (like me) with strong opinions may make you more conscious of certain issues, technical and/or aesthetic, and people with long experience can help direct the development of your taste, either when you agree with them or—just as importantly—when you don't. And all of us are influenced by example, again either positively or (sometimes) negatively. But ultimately your concerns, your subject matter, what kind of "look" you aspire to, your aesthetic choices, your technical choices, how you react to your work or other peoples' work, all of it—are all ultimately up to you to decide.

And as far as this reply is concerned, you can take it or leave it. (Cue rimshot.)

Photo by Fabian Kruse

Featured Comment by Fabian Kruse: "I did that experiment with my Ricoh GRD2 some time ago. Hating its noise way too much, I decided to just walk with it at night, ISO maxed out, shooting long exposures, and thus getting the noisiest pictures possible. Two of them even made it to my photoblog, titled 'An Appreciation of Noise' (here [and above] and here). Nowadays, my noisophobia is nearly cured. While I don't always like it, I can live with it. And it doesn't look too bad in print after all…."

The Peeve Pathology

When it comes to photographic quality, maybe you have a peeve pathology. Or maybe you know someone else who does.

Peeve, n., a cause of annoyance; back-formation from peevish, adj.,  easily irritated, esp. by minor things.

Pathology, n., 3. mental, social, or linguistic abnormality or malfunction.

In a private email conversation among the TOP brain trust that I'm listening in on but not really participating in, one of my friends admitted to a heightened sensitivity to gloss differential in digital prints. "I always detested any darkroom print that had the slightest hint of it, color or black-and-white." quoth he. Of course, most digital prints have at least a little gloss differential, because the surface of the ink where it's laid down heavily is always going to be a little different from the surface of the paper where there's little or no ink. So our friend has tried to learn to tolerate it, but only because he has to. He's had to force himself to relax about it. It's not always easy for him. He's working on it.

Gloss differential? I seldom notice it. Except when it's so massive it slaps me across the chops like a dead carp.

Another TOP contributor hates so-called blue replacement (color-replacement, which, when it happens, is usually blue). Ever noticed that? It's when a narrow line like a electrical line or a slender branch is rendered in a digital picture as blue or purple or green instead of whatever color it should be. This friend hates that effect, notices it whenever it's present, and is probably frequently on heightened alert looking out for it.

Me? Don't really much care.

Blue replacement. Canon 5D Mark II, EF 35mm ƒ/1.4 lens, ~200%

I'm sure you know people who detest "noise." They are ever vigilant, rooting around in test pictures looking for the slightest trace of noise and, upon discovering it, trumpeting its presence like an avenging Zola. Me? Water off a duck's back. I kinda like a little noise. Those folks should get a clue and a life.

The darkroom equivalent of the noise police were called "grain-sniffers," so-called because of the close proximity of their noses to the prints when they were peering eagle-eyed at the image attempting to root out the slightest trace of the never-quite-banished evil.

I remember one hobbyist I was trying to help with this. He had gone to great lengths to devise a grain-free technique using specially selected materials and all sorts of darkroom tricks, like holding a piece of translucent plastic under the lens for part of the exposure time. Finally, he showed me a print representing the culmination of his efforts. It was so overpoweringly creamy and grain-free that it looked downright weird, like the subject of the picture was carved out of pudding. I remember thinking, well, this should satisfy him.

But no. "I can still see grain," he exclaimed, with no small measure of anguish, pointing to a small shadow area. A slight bit of film grain could indeed be detected—if you looked.

If you looked hard.

I'm way above such pettiness, in my own mind. I catch myself shaking my head and thinking, jeez, dude, get over it. Relax. Of course I can be troubled by particularly coarse, mushy grain, but I actually like grain, if it's nice. I'd go so far as to say I actually prefer a little grain to none in conventional B&W prints. I'm very relaxed about that.

But what I'm talking about here are pathologies—not intentional, sober, evenhanded, objective evaluations. Sometimes, ya just can't help what ya hate. Me, I see a perfectly nice picture I took, and my eye zooms right to whatever's most out of focus—how's the bokeh?!? Omigawd.

Adrianna right before her nap. Technically a perfectly nice family snap.
But as soon as I open it for the first time my eye goes right to...

...this, and I think, crap, is that bright ring? My new lens sucks!
See definition of "pathology," above.

I don't do this with other peoples' pictures, and I'm trying to relax about it with mine. But it's my peeve pathology, fer sure. I just hate nasty bokeh, and I have to struggle to let go of obsessing over it.

I'm mostly over it. I've worked hard to care less. But still, when I catch a trace of ni-sen I find myself thinking, what aperture was this? Gotta avoid this aperture with hard-line contrast twenty feet behind the focal plane...then I take a deep breath and think, easy, big guy. Nobody notices this sh*t but you. Let it go.

That's what defines a peeve pathology, I guess. It's whatever little peeve you have to work to let go of.

Because—well, you know how it is. There are a hundred things like this. Another friend hates any trace of haloing caused by oversharpening. If he can detect it, it's too much for him. Online, I've come across perfectly adequate rectangles of blue sky presented as evidence of lens vignetting. Vignetting? I sometimes add it to my pictures. You can probably name a few more yourself. They go on and on.

Gloss differential, blue replacement, noise, grain, haloing, vignetting, or any of the other tiny technical faults that people obsess over in photographs—those people are just being a little crazy, y'know?

Mike

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Featured Comment by Dogman: "I really hate perfection."

Featured Comment by Bob Cornelis: "Great discussion! I've been a professional fine art printer (and photographer) for many years now so I've observed first hand how every client focuses on something different in their images. Many of the things they obsess about would never, never be noticed by anyone else. Often these obsessions cause them to lose sight of what the image is all about. Have you ever thought about how many great shots have never seen the light of day because the photographer had some idiosyncratic hangup that caused them to abandon them? Over the years, I've somehow learned to let go of most of these 'tics' in my own work. About the only thing that drives me crazy when I look at a photograph is if it doesn't tell me anything about the photographer."

Featured Comment by sean: "I'm thinking hard here and I'm struggling to come up with something. Over-cooked HDR and 300mm lenses for street photography bug the life out of me, but those are a matter of taste and easily avoided. Noise, vignetting, iffy bokeh and the like, seem to go under my radar. I tell myself that's due to a high level of tolerance rather than low standards. It's the same philosophy I used to use for dating."

Endings and Beginnings

By John Kennerdell

It’s easy to know when a job is done: it’s when you get paid. What’s harder is to decide when it’s time to wind down a long-term personal project.

In 1998, a Japanese aid agency asked me to take some photos of schools and hospitals in rural Cambodia. I’d spent time in Phnom Penh but hadn’t ventured much into the countryside, partly out of safety concerns, partly due to the wretched roads. Helping push your bus through knee-high mud lost its appeal a long time ago.

But we did this trip by riverboat, and it was a revelation. Half the country seemed to be water, served by a vast fleet of elderly boats and impossibly colorful boatmen, porters, and passengers. It felt like a ticket back to the 1950s. I did the job but then stayed on another week just to shoot this waterworld.

My experience has been that we don’t choose our best subjects. They come to us, insistent and demanding. Here was something visually exciting, culturally significant, and likely to fade into history once the road system improved. There was no question but that I had to try to document a bit of it. What to do with the photos, well, I'd work on that later.

So for ten years I kept going back, usually at my own expense. Again and again. Until, sure enough, the boats began to shrink in size and number. The weird and wonderful cargo—pingpong tables and disco balls, looms and livestock, Chinese generators and teakwood beds—grew rare, then pretty much disappeared. Old fellows in fedoras gave way to young ones in baseball caps.

The feeling had been building, but it didn’t hit with full force until one day a couple of months ago. I was on a favorite dock—still a lively little place—but things just weren’t happening. It was as if I were trying to recapture my own best shots and not quite pulling it off. Another photographer fresh to the scene no doubt would have thrived on it. For me, it simply felt like time to move on. Yes, I’ll happily go on shooting the Cambodian boat scene whenever I come across it. I’m just not going to organize large chunks of my life around it any more. Time is finite, and too much else awaits.

As if to prove the point, on the way back to my hotel, crossing the big new bridge over the Mekong, I happened to see an impromptu volleyball game on the shore directly below. Not a subject I’d ever given a thought to, but it was a nice angle and within a few frames I found myself thinking, hmmm, Asian street sports...this could have potential. The start of another project? Well no, probably nothing that ambitious. But who knows? It’s just good to feel a little of the old excitement in a new context. The best subjects and the best shots, one always likes to think, are yet to come.

John

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Featured Comment by Semilog: "The volleyball player may be my favorite photo ever to appear on TOP. Gorgeous, like the very very best dance photography."

Now, Where Did I Put That Hacksaw, Mama? Merry Christmas 2009

Well, it's that time of year again—as I have every year since we began, I'm closing up shop for a few days to celebrate the ancient Solstice holiday, joining in whilst much of my culture commemorates Mithras and Mammon and honors the Christ Child. We're hoping to raise a flagon of nog with friends and relatives, smell the scent of pine indoors, trade gifts, and eat. Well, overeat, but overeat well. (Hey, a palindrome.)

I'll be back before the New Year gets here. We've got a lot of good stuff coming up: I spent a couple of hours on the phone yesterday with Peter Turnley, and it looks like we might be able to bring you his selection of his work from every phase of his career, which is going to be interesting to say the least. Howard French is working on an interview with one of our favorite photographers, and Christopher Lane has written a guide to a category of products that's been stirring great enthusiasm amongst equipment nuts recently (I can use that disparaging term because I'm one). I've been working on the next TOP Ten Cameras, we have in the hopper some more good book reviews from Geoff Wittig and from myself, and of course we'll name the Book of the Year 2009 and the Camera of the Year 2009 as part of our eagerly-awaited pointless end-of-the-year awards. And, perhaps best of all, we have a very pleasant surprise coming up on or about the 20th of next month. I cannot say more now. I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to say that much.

I know the following has made the rounds on sites of every description and innumerable email forwardings already, but I can't resist one more time because I love it:

(Photographer unknown)

And with that, a Happy Holiday Season to all. Back soon. I'll leave you with a nice little post by my friend-I've-never-met John K. about how our subjects choose us, which I'll put right above this one.

And now, back to working on that chain between my ankle and the leg of the desk—now, where did I put that hacksaw, again?

—Mike, TOP's M. of C.'s and and Longsufferin' Bob Cratchit Figure

Mike and Zander, a few years back

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Obtanium

Photo: whatdigitalcamera.com

I promised a few weeks ago that I'd sound the alert when this happened: The Panasonic GF1 and 20mm ƒ/1.7 lens combo is back in stock at Amazon. For list price, no premium.

I made the mistake of trying to shoot mine at ISO 1600 in a dimly-lit interior at a Christmas party not long ago. May I just say, "Oops"? But in general I'm really enjoying it. It is if nothing else a whole lotta fun to shoot with.

Mike

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Two Books of Portraiture: 21st Century, 20th Century

Pores. Skin pores. Craterous, oily, vivid skin pores in high relief. That's the overriding impression made by the portraits in this collection.

I was inspired by Geoff's lament the other day regarding the alleged decline of photo book making to seek out these two very beautifully-made recent photo books, both of which happen to consist of portraits. In the case of the always aptly-named photorealist painter par excellence Chuck Close (that's him on the cover), the pictures are enlargements of large daguerreotypes made in collaboration with the master of daguerreotypy Jerry Spagnoli, whose work we have (somewhat controversially) featured before.

The book itself is certain type of artifact that I admit makes me a little uncomfortable. Let's put it this way. Do you happen to remember Heritage Press books? They can still be found in virtually any used book shop. George Macy began publishing ultra-deluxe editions of classic literature in the year of the Great Crash, 1929, a venture he dubbed The Limited Editions Club. The books were printed in editions of 1500 (hence the name) and sold by subscription. They were very expensive. They featured custom design and typography and bespoke illustrations by leading artists, and they were made using the finest papers and bindings. They're still traded by booksellers in the $60–$300 range, although a few high points go for much more. Then, in one of those seemingly un-self-aware cognitively dissonant moves seemingly much beloved of culture-vultures, Macy instituted a more downmarket variant in 1935—the thick of the Great Depression—called the Heritage Press. The Heritage Press (often a first enthusiasm for future book collectors) published and distributed, also by subscription, unlimited-edition middlebrow versions of their upper-crusty LEC counterparts.

Exclusivity for the middle-class masses? Unlimited editions of limited editions? I've always felt that something was not quite sound about the concept, even though I own a couple of HP books, and even though I have a tolerant fondness for midcentury middlebrow culture. My problem is that every time I see a Heritage Press book, it makes me wonder what it was really supposed to look like—that is, what the Limited Editions Club version looked like.

At any rate, that's what Chuck Close's A Couple of Ways of Doing Something (here's the U.K. link), published by Aperture, essentially is—it's the public and affordable version of a far more exclusive and expensive portfolio, to which ordinary people are not expected to aspire. There were only 75 copies anyway. This is the Heritage Press version, if you will.

Chuck Close, Lorna Simpson 2006, one of the finer portraits from
A Couple of Ways of Doing Something

If you can look past that feeling of being patronized, of being shown the table-scrap version of the real thing, it's a gorgeous book in its own right. The printing quality is pull-out-the-stops, the design exquisite, the binding fine. The poems accompanying each picture—"by Bob Holman, the celebrated and widely published New York School poet who originated and hosted the famous Poetry Slams at the Nuyorican Poets Café and now runs the Bowery Poetry Club," according to the publisher's description—are perhaps writ too large, so they might stand up to the photographs visually. That's a quibble.

The portrait subjects comprise an exclusive club, too, which gives the group a self-congratulatory feel. (Note Lorna Simpson's smugness, or am I imagining that too?) Essentially, they're a group of top artists who happen to be Chuck's friends and peers. There's more than a whiff of real, not feigned, elitism here—it's an "in group," for sure—but one can hardly grouse about a portrait artist making subjects of his friends.

To make monumental monoliths of human faces is Close's project, and I can't pretend to criticize—I don't feel his work, but then, I don't really know it. "Daguerreotype" and "monumental" don't seem to go together naturally, on, er, the face of it. This glistening book is beautiful in every conceivable way except that, for me, the pictures don't quite convince as portraits (can a portrait work as art yet not as portraiture?), and thus the project doesn't quite cohere. If I've really seen it.

And the pores distract. Maybe it takes paint to provide the needed distance from the excessively, er, close visual intimacy.

But a lovely, lovingly made volume it indisputably is.

-

Another stout and comely little book that's gained a place on my eagerly-awaited new shelving unit is the Thames & Hudson An Inner Silence: The Portraits of Henri Cartier-Bresson by Agnes Sire and Jean-Luc Nancy, which I bought on Miserere's recommendation. (I apparently got the last one; the hardcover's gone out of print just since I started writing this review. The paperback is expected soon. If you live in Great Britain, you're in luck, as the hardcover is still available there. But act smartly.) As a book it has an exactly-made feel, its dust jacket fitting precisely, its paper rich and thick, its boards true and flat, the spine rounded just so. The reproduction quality is superb: the lustrous tritones are exact reproductions made directly from original prints drawn from the collection of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris. In fact this was the new institution's first project. The reproductions are in an important sense reproductions, really, not just plates or illustrations; the book's creators have elected to be exactingly faithful to the prints, even down to their occasional flaws or hurts.

Many of the most famous portraits are here: Collette and her housekeeper; Pound at St. Elizabeth's; Truman Capote in the garden; Faulkner; Sartre; the severe and aloof Joliet-Curies. There are (naturally, because they're published here for the first time) a number I've never seen, emphasizing again that H.C.-B.'s archive is vast and he did not insist in life (as he surely cannot in death) on making the selects himself as an indivisible part of his process. 

Among the missing are the famous one of Matisse with his doves, and my own favorite of H.C.-B.'s portraits, Giacometti crossing the street in the rain with his jacked pulled over his head. Also, a number of pictures that happen to be of people are pressed into service as "portraits" although they don't seem to quite fit the genre. H.C.-B. had a fairly well-defined project in mind in his portraiture, and random people at a bar or the famous black mama picture from America in Passing don't fit the enterprise, in my opinion, even if the pictures are nice.

Compare to Eisie
My only other cavil is that I'm not quite sure the general collector needs Cartier-Bresson's portraits. Is that too blunt?

With any artist's oeuvre, it is reasonable to ask, if this body of work did not exist, would the artist's reputation and accomplishment be diminished? If Ansel Adams's color work (also the subject of a good new book) were to disappear, it wouldn't affect his standing a jot. I wouldn't miss Walker Evans's subway pictures, although others might—they don't define that artist's best work for me.

One might also ask the question the other way around, so to speak—if this work were all that the artist did, would it be enough to secure the reputation he or she in fact has achieved? Cartier seems to try a bit too hard with his portraits, throwing the faces to one side or toward one edge a little too recklessly, as if searching, mostly in vain, for the dynamic framing that characterizes his best work out in the world; and I'm not sure he has quite the knack for capturing the essence of a personality or a person's appearance as surely as he was able to frame the strangeness and wholeness of moments amidst the melee of life.

So Cartier-Bresson is a very good but not, in my opinion, a great portraitist. (Compare to Eisenstadt for an object lesson.) If his portraits were never made I don't think it would diminish his reputation much. Similarly, if his portraits were all he ever did, I don't think he'd be known as a photographer of the first rank, much less as one of the greatest of the 20th century.

If you do like his portraits, however—for instance if you are a portraitist!—or if you seek a reasonably complete collection of the photographer's work, this book is well recommendable. It is a broad sampling, perhaps too broad and perhaps just a bit of a jumble, but 'tis a very pleasing example of the bookmaker's art. You will never have a chance to own better reproductions of these works, nor have cause to complain. I didn't add the Chuck Close book to my shelf, but I did buy this one: H.C.-B. suits my taste, and this here is fine H.C.-B. (Maybe I'm just "so 20th Century.")

Mike

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Featured Comment by Robin Dreyer: "I love that Chuck Close book and have looked at it a lot. However, you didn't really mention the typography, which is pretty great. They turned Bob Holman's poems over to typographer and letterpress printer Ruth Lingen who made a distinctive visual composition out of each one. Very nice. Nice of you to give Jerry Spagnoli front and center credit for his role in this—you have to read the text carefully to find his name in the book."

Seasonal Art

By Ctein

Outdoor decorations are to Christmas what fireworks are to the Fourth of July. These exuberant displays of brilliant color and darkness-banishing light derive from, and are inspired by, their respective holidays. But after that they take on a life of their own. The enthusiastic, yet temporary, creations of private and public art are a celebration in themselves. A feast for the eyes, you can delight in Christmas decorations whether or not you observe the Yule, just as you can delight in fireworks whether or not you are a flag-waving patriot.

I've always loved Christmas decorations on a personal level, but they also intrigue me as an artist and a photographer of urban and suburban landscapes. Christmas seems to me a holiday unusually grounded in weather. Although it is celebrated all over the world, without regard to geography or meteorology, it is the quintessentially seasonal happening. All the secular symbolism, images, and archetypes are inextricably linked to a certain kind of climate typical of New England and northern Europe (hardly a surprise, there). Songs like "Jingle Bells," "Frosty the Snowman," and "White Christmas"; fir tree branches dappled with snow; Santa Claus dressed for the North Pole; snowflake, tinsel, and icicle decorations. These are all symbolic of the icy winter that comes between the fall harvest and the verdant spring.

Where I live, not so much. I made most of the photographs in my monograph "Christmas in California" within ten miles of my Daly City home, and all are located on the San Francisco Peninsula. This is one of those blessed spots that have a true Mediterranean climate. Locals consider it "cold" where I live; the ocean breezes and fog produce many days that are down in the high 50s Fahrenheit, and the nights may even get into the 40s. This is not exactly the winter that comes to mind when thinking of Christmas.

Oh, we do get snow. In the 40+ years I've lived here, since moving from New York, we've had measurable snow on the ground at least three times. White stuff that hung around long enough to have a snowball fight and make a very modest snowman. Not exactly a frequent occurrence, and it has never happened for Christmas.

This does not dissuade the locals. If anything the decorations here are even more imaginative and exuberant. Consciously or not, the folk artists who turn their houses into Christmas art (and they most certainly are art) seem intent to make up for the deficiencies in what Mother Nature has provided. Their real estate becomes a raw canvas onto which they paint dreams and desires for a joyous festival. For a few weeks these private feelings are on public display where the passing audience, including I, can delight in them. Half installation and half performance art, they spring up out of the mundane suburban landscape in December and merge back into it in January in a near-magical way: I hardly ever see them being put up or taken down—suddenly they are there and just as suddenly they are gone.

Taken as a whole these decorations have no obvious shared aesthetic despite their common inspiration. Many times I see extraordinary, isolated displays blazing away in an otherwise dark neighborhood. It's equally likely for me to find clusters of amazing constructions as neighborhoods engage in sociable, cooperative competition like some hyperchromatic, Prismacolor poetry jam. Sometimes there seem to be themes, where I can walk down a block and sense an underlying consistency or at least a subconsciously-shared artistic perspective. Others are entirely individualistic with one house's display having no connection with the one next to it other than the holiday, much like the disparate pavilions of different countries at a World's Fair. Some creations are elegant, subtle, and understated; others can only be described as (and I mean no disrespect by this) "over the top."

What these presentations do share is heart and the purpose of their creators to gift the world with a public celebration.

Christmas decorations are a very pure kind of art. They have to stand on their own, without reference to or knowledge about their artists. People reveal deep and very personal sentiments through these works, but the work isn't about them. The paradox of Christmas displays is that they are anonymous at the same time they intimately expose their makers' passions (up to a point). The dwellers in these artworks have established clear and consensual boundaries; one does not typically find a neat biography nor list of previous and upcoming exhibits posted next to the plastic reindeer.

That's why you won't find stories along with my pictures about the artists who created these lovely displays. It's understandable to be curious; I also wonder who's behind some of these displays. But artwork always has its mysteries and puzzles, and what we know of these artists should properly come from their art, not from invading their privacy.

Here is what these decorations are all about, for me: they are about the enjoyment, they are about the party, they are about having fun and a good time. I present my portfolio in the same spirit as the anonymous artists presented their creations to the world. May it bring you joy in any season of the year, brightening your days and nights.

Happy holidays to you, for whichever ones you love to celebrate.

Pax, Ctein

This essay was originally written to accompany Ctein's monograph "Christmas in California."

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Open Mike: The Red Cloud School

Charles Milton Bell, Red Cloud in Native Dress with Breastplate, 1880
(Photo: Smithsonian)

In this season of charitable giving, I'd like to mention once again the people and kids at Red Cloud Indian School on the Pine Ridge in South Dakota.

The school is named for Red Cloud (Lakota name: Makhpiyaluta or Mahpiua-Luta, literally "Crimson Cloud"), a leader of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux) tribe who was, more than any other Oglala chief, associated with the painful transition of his people from resistance fighters to subjugated population.

2009 is the 100th anniversary of Red Cloud's death. 

The Red Cloud School boys' basketball team, seen here winning the Region 8A championship, were invited to scrimmage at halftime at a Denver Nuggets preseason game on Oct. 3, 2009. (Photographer unidentified)

Red Cloud School is a Catholic (Jesuit) elementary and secondary school for Lakota children and young people. It is located in Shannon County, South Dakota, which is one of the three poorest of the 3,140 counties in the United States. (Another of the three is right next to it.) Pine Ridge Agency is the 8th largest Native American reservation in the United States, larger than the States of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The sprawling community is beset by severe poverty-related health, unemployment, and substance-abuse problems. 

Sophomores Justice Kills Straight, left, and Simone Shot With Arrow hang out in the Cuny Commons area of the newly renovated portion of Red Cloud Indian School after the building's dedication ceremony on Friday morning. Oct. 16, 2009. (Photo by Kristina Barker, Rapid City Journal)

Red Cloud School serves 600 young people, 99% of whom are Lakota. It is staffed primarily by Lakota and strives to preserve and teach Lakota heritage as well as prepare students for college. It offers a Montessori School for preschool children and maintains a heritage museum. The college placement rate is 90%, which is good by any standards, but amazing for a school in such at at-risk community. The kids work hard and strive to make the most of their education.

I first began donating to Red Cloud School at the recommendation of photographer Aaron Huey, whose scarifying pictures of life on the Pine Ridge we linked to in October. Unfortunately, the school's website is down at the moment, but, if you wish to, you can give a gift here.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Joseph Vavak: "One of the great injustices going on in this country involves a tiny village just across the South Dakota state line called Whiteclay, Nebraska, and the people of the Pine Ridge. Whiteclay has a population of 14 yet has four stores that sell about four million cans of beer annually. While alcohol is outlawed on the reservation, its authorities cannot control what goes on past the state line and the state of Nebraska has continued to fail to do anything about the situation.

"My visit to Whiteclay left me completely appalled by what I found there. It was a mid-Sunday afternoon and there were people passed out on the side of the highway, others staggering around and empty beer containers littered everywhere. I felt just sick to see something like this in my home state. The worst part is that most people, even those in Nebraska, don't know about the situation. To learn more about Whiteclay and ways to help bring about change, you can visit the website."

Featured Comment by Mike Nelson Pedde: "Great idea, Mike. Pine Ridge is like a third-world country in the middle of the richest nation on earth. The people there are wonderful, though."

Featured Comment by Mani Sitaraman: "I am shocked to learn the following from Wikipedia: '...The population on Pine Ridge has among the shortest life expectancies of any group in the Western Hemisphere: approximately 47 years for males and in the low 50s for females. The infant mortality rate is five times the United States national average...." The Pine Ridge residents have a per capita income about a tenth that of the average American. For another summary on the community, check this out."

Leaping Wolf Picture Called Into Question

Seems like everything needs an update these days. When I published our earlier item about José Luis Rodriguez' leaping wolf picture winning the world's largest nature photography competition, I didn't expect it would become controversial—I'm just mindful that some readers like wildlife photography, and I want this site to serve people of a variety of interests and tastes rather than just people whose interests and tastes are identical to mine. However, I regret to report that there are now allegations—as yet unproved—that the picture might be fraudulent. Not the photograph itself, but how it was represented.

According to an article in Suomen Luonto (Nature of Finland) magazine, the picture, which was represented to be of a wild wolf, might in fact be a picture of a tame captive wolf named Ossian. In any case, the evidence is pretty convincing that the picture was taken not in open conditions but at the Cañada Real Center Zoological Park near Madrid.

Why is the representation relevant? Because the BBC contest's rules state that "Images of captive animals must be declared. The judges will take preference to images taken in free and wild conditions." Apparently the picture was submitted as being of a wild wolf. (The panel of judges has issued no formal statement as of yet.)

The evidence as it stands thus far was apparently collected by several other Spanish nature photographers, who are concerned about the reputation of Spanish photography. "There are many of us who have strong ethics," said one.

As I often say, pictures are statements, and their truth depends in large part on the honesty of the photographer, in the same way a statement in a magazine, newspaper, or book depends on the integrity of the reporter or author. I hope, if these questions turn out to be valid, that this was just an honest mistake on the part of José Luis, and that the situation will soon be put right.

Mike
(Thanks to Thiago Silva)

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Lowest-Priced DSLR Ever?

Every morning, as part of my routine, I check Amazon's "Deal of the Day" to see if it happens to be photographically relevant. Today, after a near-endless parade of DVDs of TV shows, it is. Finally. On offer is a really quite responsive and highly capable 10-megapixel Canon Digital Rebel Xs DSLR with 18-55mm IS lens for $409. [Note: link removed 12/21; sale's over. Today's deal is a DVD of a TV series called "Torchwood," so we're back to normal. —Ed.]

It made me wonder. Is this the cheapest DSLR and lens I've ever seen for sale? I really can't claim to follow such things all that closely. Two landmarks in the history of the emergence of digital photography that I remember vividly were the advent of the Canon D30 [sic], a 3-megapixel camera introduced in the Spring of 2000 for the then-breakthrough price of less than $3,000 (just), and the original Canon Digital Rebel, a 6-megapixel camera announced in the summer of aught-three for less than a thousand dollars, which was equally remarkable. If not a little more so. I saw many very fine pictures come out of that appealing little camera, and I'm sure many people reading this have fond memories of one or the other of those two now-quaint devices. We thought both those prices were wondrous, at the time.

And now look where we are. A quick check doesn't uncover any cheaper DSLR-and-lens combo available just at the moment. And if this isn't the cheapest ever, what was? I'd like to see someone write a history of digital camera prices. I'm not sure I have the stamina myself, but someone who likes numbers and charts would find chewy stuff to feast on, I'm guessin'.

Mike

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A Strange Sort of Product Review, Part I

This is actually "on topic."

...For me, anyway. I've been working for photography enthusiasts for something like 22 years now, and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that many people have a particular slant to their interest—their own particular way of enjoying photography.

A big part of my own enjoyment, as regular readers know, is photo books. I don't buy a lot of them, but I've been interested in photographic books literally since I was a child (my earliest photographic education came from looking at thousands of American Civil War photographs, mostly in books). And, if you're interested in something consistently over enough years, objects accumulate.

(Pace Calvin Amari, below, I had a friend in Maryland who bought himself one nice photograph a year as a birthday present to himself. The collection was impressive when I knew him—I believe he had more than twenty prints at that time, including some by very big-name photographers—and that was seventeen years ago. If he kept going, the collection must be stunning by now—he had collected some photographers early on whose work has since appreciated into the stratosphere, and would be unobtainable by mere mortals now. He was definitely a mere mortal, who worked for county government for a living.)

Anyway, what I'm saying is that I have a lot of photography books.

That leads to an odd problem: shelving.

I don't know if you know this, but bookshelves are difficult to buy. Most furniture stores, even many good ones, even many big ones, hardly have anything in the way of bookshelves. Those that do usually mostly carry bookcases for people who don't like books—good for six feet of paperbacks. Some stores, when you ask for "bookshelves," will lead you to display cases with shelves made of glass—great for knicknacks, not good for actual books. The biggest bookcase I have at this moment came from an office supply store, and I believe I had it in my room when I was eleven.

That's not the only problem: Photo books tend to be oversize. Some are short but deep; some are thick and heavy; some are just plain big. One of the biggest books I have is Todd Hido's House Hunting, which is very close to 17 inches high. That's not even very big to some art and photography book collectors, but then again, it's the rare bookcase that can accommodate a 17-inch high book. 

The deepest book I have is 16 inches deep, which means it sticks out of the only oversize bookcase I have, which I bought (the bookcase, I mean) at Ikea in Maryland in maybe 1989 or '90. That one is 34 1/2 inches high by 33 1/2 inches high by 15 inches deep, outside dimensions. I intended to buy more of the same unit as finances allowed; but by the time I was ready to buy a second one, Ikea had discontinued them.

That case filled up about fourteen years ago, and has stayed that way ever since. Thus, it's of limited (read: no) use in dealing with new acquisitions.

Critical information
This year is about to be over, and I'm not ready. For one thing, longtime readers with good memories might recall that I shared some of my New Year's Resolutions for 2009—three, to be exact—not one of which I have managed to fulfill in the intervening 352 days. So, in an effort to squeak my #1 resolution (as I put it then: "Moar bookshelve") in under the wire before 2009 is over and 2010 gets here, I figured I might try to buy a bookcase for photo books before the year's out.

Here's the crucial, critical piece of information I discovered in 2009: unfinished furniture stores.

They're the place to get custom-made, real bookcases in the sizes you specify. You can choose your style, your size, the wood you want, the dimensions, and the finish; you can choose open style, or request doors.

So, today I bought a bookcase. It was very expensive by my (cheap!) standards. But I'm tired of having stacks of expensive photo books piled hither and yon in the nooks and crannies of my house.

Disgrace! This is no way to treat good photography books.

I intended to buy two, but decided on just one when I heard the (gulp) price.

The one I ordered is 36 inches wide. It has a deeper base that is 36" high and 18" deep—that's about 30" of usable space, which I'll divide into two shelves, one for books that are tall and wide and one for books that are short and wide (so-called "landscape format" books, which give 8- and 10-inch bookshelves fits). The 4-foot top section is 14" deep on the outside dimension, which itself is deep enough for many photo books. Both sections will have glass doors (my house is very dusty, and dust is very hard on books). It's made of oak. The shop is going to finish it and deliver it. It's supposed to take six to eight weeks.

I'll continue this "product review" when it gets here.

So that's it: one resolution down, at more or less the last minute.

I have a new resolution for 2010, and it's a biggie. It entails a major change for me, a fundamental change of emphasis for my photography. But I'll tell you about that when 2010 gets here.

Of course, I might not actually get to it in 2010.

I'm taking tomorrow off. See you sometime on Sunday. But remember my tip: if you're searching for high quality oversize bookshelves for photography books, unfinished furniture stores are the place to look.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Geoff Wittig: "About 15 years ago I was confronted with the problem of what to do with all my books, as they relentlessly accumulated in unsteady piles around the bedroom. 'Gotta do something about that, or I'm sleeping on the couch; I don't want to be crushed by a pile of falling books,' said my long-suffering wife. Coincidentally I found At Home with Books: How Booklovers Live with and Care for Their Libraries, a coffee-table tome full of gorgeous photos of spectacular home libraries. Sort of 'interior design porn' for bibliophiles.

"This gave me big ideas, and I cast my greedy eyes on the large unfinished space above our garage. My wife rolled her eyes, sighed heavily, and said 'knock yourself out.' One of the advantages of living in the boondocks is ready access to cheap raw lumber and affordable skilled craftsmen. A carpenter we know filled the space with custom-designed bookshelves to conform to the gable-roofed shape. The shelves get deeper from ceiling to floor as the walls recede, accommodating larger books toward the bottom. The shelves themselves ride on adjustable metal tabs and can be placed at any height. Perfection! My wife extracted a promise that she had the right to divorce me once all the shelves were filled. Seemed entirely reasonable at the time.

"Unfortunately, that was 15 years ago. Since then, I've managed to fill every last nook & cranny of the copious shelving, and I'm back to tottering piles of my latest acquisitions scattered across the floor of my 'library.' Gotta get around to 'de-accessioning' a bunch of the less worthy books...real soon now. The 'divorce thing' so far I've managed to finesse by keeping the wife out of the room. But I think she suspects something."

Mike replies: Unfortunately, the overriding mandate with shelving is, "more." Shhh, though—I'm trying to delude myself that one 7x4' bookcase is going to be enough for me, just because it's enough for me now.

I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again. When I was young I worked as a carpenter, and one job I had was building bookshelves for my friend the bookseller William F. Hale in an apartment he'd rented across the street from his shop. He actually lived there for a while. We covered every available surface in shelving—every room, the halls (using nominal 6" lumber, for paperbacks), most of the bathroom, above the refrigerator, above the doorways. It wasn't long before you could barely get into the kitchen because of the stacks of books on the floor. Bill had to move out. No room for him.

When last heard from, Bill—who eventually married a woman who was also a bookseller—had acquired a large octagonal barn out in the country, fitted elaborately with shelving to hold some 80,000 books. Rumor has it that it has long since been filled to overflowing.

Featured Comment by Paul: "It's a brave man who posts a picture of his bookshelves! Obviously, you are a collector of discriminating tastes, as evidenced by Jim Marshall's Trust. I got a signed copy of that and have been enjoying it a little every day. For me, his work has more depth than what is mostly available now from the highly skilled, but over-produced work of professional rock photographers. Just my two cents' worth."

Nachtwey Intern Ad Kerfuffle Follow-Up

Jamie's List has posted an excellent follow-up of its post about James Nachtwey Studio's apparently innocent ad seeking an intern. Jamie's List was surprised at the volume and vehemence of the response, and, although our comments were a degree more civilized, I was surprised at the response it generated here, too, when I linked to it.

The follow-up is much better than the original post—it features Brian Smith, John Harrington, and (through John Harrington's comments) Vincent Laforet discussing various aspects of internships and common practices. Particularly interesting is John Harrington's presentation and subsequent discussion of the legal requirements that pertain. Good reading if you were interested in the issue to start with.

Mike
(Thanks to several readers)

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Sublime from the (Virtual) Five and Dime

By Calvin Amari

Reading the last three TOP discussions and a perusing some of the referenced sites raise the following question in my mind. From the perspective of a photography collector, rather than relying on the traditional mechanism of the gallery system, would one be any worse off investing serious critical time to identify prints to acquire directly through artist websites?

I have seen on these sites some terrific work at shockingly low prices, which I confess is a very compelling combination. Setting aside the work they show from very well established artists, the gallerists charge hefty sums even for the work of newcomers to the gallery scene. This premium, I suppose, is justified on several grounds. Since the artist was anointed by the gallery, his or her work is more valuable by that fact alone. A gallery show certainly provides a higher level of exposure, which impacts immediate and prospective demand for the artist's work. Also, in choosing any new artist, the gallery invariable has eliminated hundreds or thousands of alternatives deemed less deserving of gallery representation.

That may be a fair deal for collectors who don't trust their own ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Historically, however, the collector's principal reliance on the gallery system has been based on a different type of necessity: individual collectors simply have not been in a position to directly survey the work of artists. There was no mechanism for countless artists to submit slides of their work directly to collectors for review, as artists did with galleries.

I don't know why I haven't thought this through before, but isn't it the case that all these photographer websites create the basis for a paradigm shift?

I have, or have had, several areas of collecting focus over the years. Very early pioneering photography; 19th century photography of Spain; what I call "accidentally modernist" 19th century photography; Czech photography; some classic modernists; a good number of well-known contemporary photographers; etc. I am now weighing the possibility of a little collection garnered directly from photographer websites. Perhaps 30 or so images carefully selected from these sources alone—sublime from the virtual five and dime. I'm wondering how good such body of work can be but, given sufficient spade work, I think there might be reason for optimism. 

Cal

"Calvin Amari" is the pseudonym of a photography collector who prefers to remain anonymous.

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Featured Comment by Dalton: "I have been treading these waters for a couple of years now, so I might be able to provide some insight. A significant portion of my photography collection (somewhere around 40–50 prints now) comes from photographers I've discovered through their websites. I've either purchased prints from them directly or traded with them for one of my own prints. Many of these are unrepresented artists, but occasionally they are gallery artists who are selling work that is not part of their gallery portfolio. The quality of the work can vary, but overall I have been extremely happy with my growing collection.

"I think there is more great art out there than the gallery system can currently handle. Projects like Jen Bekman's 20x200 make art affordable and does a lot of the 'spade work' you mention, but there are still many, many artists who are under-represented and looking to make some money and get exposure from their work.

"I can also speak from personal experience as a photographer who sells my work directly through my website: it works! I have sold a surprising number of prints in the last year, and developed a significant network of collectors and friends who support my work. Whether or not I am able to parlay that into a career as a fine-art photographer (it's a tall, steep hill, and I'm still at the very bottom looking up), the experience of making those connections and feeling rewarded for my work has been worth it.

"Two websites to visit: printsociety.com, which is a directory of work sold directly by artists, and kickstarter.com, which has created a new model of fundraising for artists. On Kickstarter, artists are able to post project ideas and then solicit funds to complete the project. I recently funded a photographer this way and it feels really good!"

Featured Comment by Mark Hobson: "Kudos to Cal for 'thinking it through' and coming to the conclusion that he can just do it.

"I assume that he has managed this feat because, as a collector, he actually likes pictures as opposed to liking their return-on-investment potential.

"While I agree with his paradigm shift premise, the fly in that ointment is still similar to that of the good ole days—even though the web does put individual collectors 'in a position to directly survey the work of artists,' the amount of time it takes to find the wheat amongst the chaff can be staggering, eye-blurring, and mind-numbing.

"What I would like to see is a paradigm shift that includes web portal sites that are devoted to presenting 'pre-screened' photo website listings of those sites that merit at least a look. Those portals would by necessity have to be subscription-based services, mostly likely with a fairly substantial fee that would cover the costs of operation and ongoing research.

"However, I wouldn't think that a subscription cost would be a deal-killer for serious collectors. Especially since the portal would take no cut on sales and there would still be plenty of sublime-from-the-five-and-dime deals at shockingly low prices out there."

Mike comments: I don't disagree with you, but one thing you're presuming is that there would be agreement as to which sites would "merit at least a look." I've found over the years that photography collectors are like music collectors: you can have two people who are equally passionate and who both have huge collections, but with no, or very little, overlap. The big advantage of the web is the same as the big disadvantage: there is no equivalent to the gallerist imposing his or her taste on the selections, so you can (or have to, depending on how you look at it) go make your own.

Featured Comment by Rodger Kingston: "For ten years or more I have been buying vintage photographs on eBay to add to my collection. Some of my finest images have come from this source, and I might add that I have been burned only a very few times, usually by sellers who misrepresented what they were selling out of ignorance, not dishonesty. Only a couple of times have items just never come. Mind you, this is out of many hundreds of purchases.

"As to buying from living photographers off their web sites, I don't see why not; as long as you can establish a good dialog with the photographer, and there is full understanding about exactly what is being bought (what kind of print it is, size, condition, edition size if any, and especially the return policy), then I'd say it's a wide open field with great possibilities.

"The only problem is one common to all mail order purchases: you have to forgo handling or seeing the actual print before buying. Top mail order sites such as L.L. Bean get around that problem by providing great customer service, fast, inexpensive shipping, and a fabulous return policy.

"I have sold prints and limited edition artist books off my web site numerous times. I always exchange multiple emails with potential buyers, and even talk with them by phone when possible. I let them know that their satisfaction is guaranteed. I've never had a problem, and have even made a few new friends."

Featured Comment by Jeffrey Goggin: "The only cautionary note about the 'buying directly from photographers' approach I would add is that, based upon my very limited experience of swapping prints with other photographers, the image that caught your eye on a monitor and the one you eventually hold in your hand may not look nearly as alike as you may expect.

"Sometimes the prints have looked better, but most of the time they have looked worse, presumably because the web doesn't demand nearly as much from an image file as a printer does.

"In short, unless you're paying essentially throw away money for a print, I would insist upon a review period during which you can return it for any reason."

The Tenset

I'll come right out with this...I wish every photographer's website started out with the ten pictures (of their own, I mean) they love best. Call it a tenset to give it a name...a set of ten. A core set. A key set. A photographer's ten best, or ten favorite, or ten most characteristic pictures, up front. Even if they recur in later categories.

Is that asking too much?

I look at an awful lot of photography websites. I spent most of a long day yesterday looking at many more. I'm fully convinced of the need to give close and long attention to photographs, individually and collectively, and I do that often, but there are times when I can't, when I need to look and evaluate quickly, or decide quickly whether I'm going to give a particular site more time.

I don't actually care if it's five or twelve or twenty, but I'd like it if the photographer would give me a hand in getting a quick handle on who they are and what they do. Take the following scenario for example. I go to a website. There's an intro page. I look for a menu. Find it. One of the menu items is "Gallery" or "Portfolio" or "Photographs" or "The Work." I click on that. Here's what I find in the subfield:

Falklands
Valentine's Day 1998
Graduate work
Ted and Alice
Montmartre

...and ten more like that.

What the heck am I going to click on? I have no idea. I want to see quickly what that photographer's all about, what kind of chops he or she has, what his or her way of seeing might be; I want the most characteristic work first. So I end up just clicking on something at random...

...Say, "Ted and Alice." Misfire: the gallery has three shots in it, all bad flash pix of a beaming middle-aged couple at a party. The legend says "Just a few snaps of my favorite auntie at her anniversary party! We had tons of fun."

I've just wasted my time. And still have the same problem...don't know where to go next to get a handle on that photographer. If I'm surfing fast, my next move might be to leave.

Worse, I might find something like this under a "Gallery" menu header:

Abstracts
Travel
Nature
People
Street Photography

...and so on.

Well, that's a bad sign, to me. I don't tend to like, and don't much trust, photographs that can readily be sorted into pat categories. I haven't seen a single picture, and I'm already a bit prejudiced against the work. Which, four times out of five, with headers like that, is going to be generic and imitative. (They could usually simply be labeled "Pictures I've taken that look just like other pictures I've seen.")

Granted, people need some way to sort pictures into meaningful piles—you can't lump it all into one immense heap. But can't we exercise a little creativity on the nature and labels of the piles? We're supposed to be creative people, after all.

And give me a tenset at the outset. I'm sorry a practice like that didn't get to be web-conventional early on.

Diversions
In the "Commentariat" post, a reader named Jenny Rose nominated a site by a photographer named Simon Robinson as being worthy of attention. I hasten to emphasize that I don't mean to criticize Simon's photographs; I agree with Jenny Rose. However, the other overriding impression I'm left with whenever I surf many photographers' sites in one sitting is that maybe half of the sites seem to be actively working against my desire to see the pictures there.

Simon's site is a convenient case in point. It's not the worst I've ever seen (maybe one site in every ten or twenty chases me away with the pure awful badness of its user interface. Especially if the first picture takes an eternity to load, I'm outta there). But it's not good. First of all, the pictures are too small. Secondly, the pictures are defaced by a copyright notice. It's not for me to say people shouldn't put their copyright notices in the image area, although I don't like the practice: anything in the way of the picture is bad in my book. Worse, on Simon's site the navigation features crowd not only all around the pictures, but into them as well. Mouse over a picture, and the caption drops into the picture area; convenient in terms of access, admittedly—but why put it on top of the image? Couldn't it just as easily pop out just above the image? I don't understand why this is so common on the web: it's like looking at a picture in a museum and having someone step right in front of you to tell you something about it.

I suspect the underlying problem is that the UI designers see pictures as unimportant. It's their design they like and want to emphasize, not the stupid picture, which is merely a design element to them. Of course, what we want to see are the pictures first and foremost. Uncluttered and unimpeded, please.

Egregiously needless in the case of Simon's site is that when you put the mouse on one of the thumbnails, a slightly larger thumbnail sprouts up into the picture area. Now you're just annoyin' me. (The popup in this screen-grab says "PAIN," which I thought was apropos.)

And, before the site is fully loaded, the progress wheel for the loading of the next image appears in the middle of the image. That is, important information is being obscured by trivial information. Which should never happen, although it, too, is commonplace. Why? Another common problem I find is that the space goes blank while the next picture loads. Again, why? The site's just wasting my time, and not being subtle about it, either. I don't understand why all websites don't just let us continue to look at the picture that's already up while the next picture loads, and then switch quickly, without fuss.

The sites that navigate by clicking on the picture itself to change to the next one are probably easiest and best. Failing that, the arrow or index for the next picture should at least stay in the same place so you can simply rest your mouse there and click whenever you're ready to change. Navigation arrows that jump around from here to there are just pitiful. In the case of Simon's site, you have to divert your attention away from the picture to navigate the thumbnails to get to the next picture, but you can't rest your mouse on the next thumbnail because it initiates that irritating little popup. So you have to divert your attention away from the picture twice just to change from one picture to the next. Arragh.

We all deal with presentation issues. TOP's far from perfect, god knows (I'm not a programmer). We all make do, and do the best we can. I like Simon's black and white. To echo Louis Armstrong's highest compliment of another musician, "he has good tone."

So, does anyone know of a site meant for looking at photographs that they consider ideal in terms of the UI? 

Mike

P.S. In Simon's bio, he actually asks for feedback on his site. Guess he just got mine!

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Featured Comment by Jeremy Epstein: "So, as a UI person...

"It seems folks so enthusiastically wish to show everything that they fail to edit. Most people want to share the full breadth of their work, and the software lets them share lots more, so much more that more becomes the problem.

"In UI there is no free lunch. Human beings posses finite capacities for attention, memory, dexterity etc...there is no free lunch and more stuff to show is, well, more. More controls, more navigation, more titles, more confusion, more things that zig and zag and spin and distract from the photographs.

"As far as the experience of viewing goes, speed is the primary aphrodisiac. Make those images smaller, compress them carefully, and remove page elements that don't support your work. Designers use spinners, transitions, and progress bars to make up for the fact their sites are slow.

"Imagine setting up your website the way galleries set up shows: Show nothing but the single edit that represents one facet of something you are involved in. Don't show the rest. Nothing else save perhaps an artist statement. Essentially no navigation, or limited navigation.

"Then do what all good websites do and 'rotate' your exhibit every week or every month to show a new facet. 8–12 photos are all that most folks can absorb at a time anyway.

"Basically the biggest failing comes from trying to do too much, not trying to do to little. Let your art speak, not the gee-whiz s**t or the flash. (And photos are not the first part of my website, or what I do, so there goes the practice vs. preach....)

Mike replies: Good advice, Jeremy, although I'm not sure about the "rotate" part. I think most photographers specifically don't want to have to rotate...they want to "set and forget." After all, the point is to sell their work, not create more work for themselves by having to revise their website presentation on an ongoing basis. Instead of rotation, it seems to me that many photographers are now going for a dual approach: a static formal site to present their portfolio and serve as a primary means of access for potential clients, and a blog to show samples of current projects and new work in passing.

For one thing, most current projects and new work will never make it into the formal portfolio. The purpose of this site is not to show my work, but over time I've shown sets of "current work" of my own a few times, for instance here, here, and here, and not one picture from any of those particular three sets has made it into my main portfolio (although this one is still under consideration).

Featured Comment by Ben Mathis: "We go through this a lot in the 3D videogame industry also, but the website is even more important to us, because it is THE way to get work. We don't have flatbooks and physical folios—we send potential clients to the website, and get hired or passed over solely on that.

"The basic rule set we use:

• No flash, ever.
• No splash page, go right into the content.
• Only one level deep of navigation, none of this  "people > candids > wedding 2009" malarky
• Design for 1024x768 or larger
• UI needs to be simple, easy to use, email link should be accessible from every page
• Large thumbnails no smaller than 75 pixels in any dimension, and they should be cropped to format and not be tiny details of the larger image (though we photographers tend not to do that—we understand the importance of the whole image).

"Someone mentioned earlier a basic page with just name, and scrolling images, nothing to click at all (other than email). And I can't help but wonder if they meant mine." 

Featured Comment by Simon Robinson: "Well, I wasn't expecting this when I logged on this morning! My first thought was 'Great, Mike's mentioned my website!', then I read on....

"I have to agree with pretty much everything you say and I appreciate the comments (this is the first feedback I've had). I'll take it on board and see what I can do with my limited knowledge of building websites.

"One of the main problems I came across when building the site was trying to get it to display properly on the majority of browsers. I use a Windows PC and consequently Internet Explorer. I'd get it right on IE and then look at it on a Mac and all sorts of things would be wrong—different parts of the screen that were the same colour in IE were different shades on a Mac. The issue you raise about the screen going blank when the image loads doesn't happen in IE. I'm not saying this as an excuse for a poorly designed website (Ithought it was well designed when I built it!), it's just that it can be difficult to get it to cater for all browsers.

"As I said above, I'll see what I can do to improve the UI. Mike, would it be ok for me to email you directly to get feedback on my progress? Would you also be able to tell me what browser you use and what your screen resolution is set to?

"Look like I'm going to be very busy for the next week or so!"

Mike replies: Thanks Simon, and thanks for being a good sport, too. I use Firefox 3.5.5. with a screen res of 1680x1050. I have Safari to do spot checks for compatibility, but I don't have IE. When you get your site redone, shoot me a note and I'll post another link to it. Also, whatever camera/lens/film you're using for your square B&W, don't ever change. Perfect.

By the way, I'm surprised by how few of my readers have gone to see your site for themselves. Maybe most people aren't interested in this post?

Featured Comment by Mark Roberts: "All right.... After teaching web design in college for a few years (and being a photographer even longer) I can offer some advice here!

1. Simpler is better, both in terms of design and technology. Go with plain HTML as much as you can, JavaScript only if you absolutely must and Flash if someone puts a gun to your head.

2. Never test your design on Internet Explorer. Use Firefox first and tweak for other browsers and operating systems later if necessary. It usually won't be necessary (especially if you followed rule 1) and if it is, it'll be much easier than if you started with IE and then tried to correct for other browsers.

3. Pay attention to size; both pixel dimensions and file size. Make your thumbnails big enough (in pixel dimensions) that they're intelligible, and make your big images small enough (in file size) that they download quickly.

"If you're really interested in web usability, you should read Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox page regularly.

"If you're a non-geek who just wants to make your web site better, then Vincent Flanders' Web Pages That Suck is both informative and hilarious. (Particularly read his two 'Bad Web Design Checklists.')"

Featured Comment by Keith Trumbo: "Let me put it bluntly. If the photographs are original it's worth wading through their website no matter how badly designed it might be. The packaging is not the problem. Of course better design supports the work but for me it is that so much of what I see has so little soul, originality and creativity. I feel that the digital age has raised mediocrity to a new height. So much attention is on the vehicle i.e. the website, the camera etc. rather than the subject matter. These conversations are almost a smokescreen to hide the sheer boringness of the millions of images that we seem to be drowning in."

Mike replies: Your perspective is, ahh...not invalid, but what I'm talking about is, when dealing quickly with high volumes of sites, how do you know if the photographers are original or not, if it takes you more time to uncover an adequate sampling than you want to waste on a site that doesn't suit? We're all looking for different things, and at different times. What I'm talking about is the ability to get a quick, efficient read on the question, "should I spend more time here or should I move on"? What we're trying to avoid is the tragedy of leaving a photographer behind because the interface is exasperating, thereby missing the rare original work we are in fact seeking....

Featured Comment by Mark Tucker [whose website was featured in the "Challenge for the Commentariat" post, below —Ed.]: "Someone sent me a link to this discussion.

"I agree with the TenSet theory. Actually, I have proposed a law that limits the amount of images on any photographer's website to ten images. If you can't say it in ten, you're not specialized enough.

"Sorry about my Slide Show approach the other day. It was an experiment, and it lasted all of about three days, until some guy in Germany wrote to me and bitched me out. Problem is: with FolioLink template, you set the timing of each image, but in the end, it's determined by the connection speed of each viewer, which kills the whole approach.

"I've tried everything from writing my own HTML code, to now Flash/Foliolink, and tempted by Haggart's FotoFolio, but in the end, it's about the (ten) pictures. Also gotta be clear who you're talking to—art buyers' needs are much different than the general public, in how they view your site. Mine is not perfect by any stretch, but honestly, I'm just sick of messing with it. It is what it is.

"Best of luck to everyone. There is no perfect answer."

The Future of the Photo Book

The meaning of the photo book has changed radically in the digital era, sez me.

Some time ago (not sure if anybody was listening, or cared) I made the point that photo books were how photographers communicated. Sure, serious photographers had shows—but despite the "occasion" of a show, the hard filter it placed on editing, the ideal nature of the presentation—the fact is that very few people saw them. A gallery owner puts a great deal of resources into presenting a show for a month. So does the photographer, who often uses the fact of the exhibit as a "crash" motivation to print a set of work and often has to pay for framing, too. The preparation can be a significant investment of all sorts of things: money, time, psychic energy, creative energy.

And then how many people see it? A few dozen to a few hundred, maybe...hopefully the right ones. The right people, I mean. Maybe, if the show is in a museum and the museum is prestigious, the show is seen by a few thousand people. But in that case, a lot of them might be random tourists. And then, the month is over, the show is taken down.

Photo books, on the other hand, endure better through time. They're more widely disseminated, yet they hit their target audience more cleanly. They can be seen by more people. People can experience them without having to buy or own them. They're just as hard a filter for redacting a body of work, for the most part (books are often the record of shows, in the case of show catalogs, for that matter.)

Photo books weren't just a reflection of the culture of photographers...they were the culture. They were how you kept track, how you saw work, how you learned who was doing what, how you "saw" shows you missed.

That's all changed.

The internet has a vastly greater reach. It's far, far more democratic. It's greatly more accessible. You can see more work with it, by several orders of magnitude. The photo book has been supplanted as the way to look at work. Most of the work I see these days is online. (Although I still crave seeing original prints; I just don't get much opportunity.)

So is the photo book dead? Dying?

Not hardly. In fact—against the odds, one might have guessed—it's flourishing as never before. This could possibly be because we're in a sort of renaissance period and we just don't know it because we're in the middle of it; it might also be because the digital era has gotten so many more people interested in photography that the audience has simply grown (well, there are more people on Earth than there were in 1978 or 1953, too).

However, the purpose and usefulness of the photo book has changed. Allow me to state a general problem using a specific example:

Let's say a photographer gets an idea. His idea is that a good place to go photograph might be, oh, let's say, a yard sale. (You could pick anything, I don't care, it's not important to the concept.)

Internet version: So I went to this yard sale for an hour last Saturday. I took forty pictures. Here are the best thirty-six.

Book version: I've been to more than three dozen yard sales over a five-year period and have probably taken more than two thousand exposures. Here's the best one.

The internet is great for sharing photos. It's a revolution in itself. It's convenient, democratic, robust, vibrant. I'm not saying it isn't any of those things, so please hold the complaints! But the problem is that it's a Great Pacific Garbage Patch of pictures. That's its nature. There are billions of photographs on the web. One person cannot look at all the photographs on one big photo-sharing site—I mean cannot, it is not possible, even looking at three pictures per second all day long as a full-time job—and there are thousands of sites.

So what's missing? Editing. Winnowing. Sifting. Curating. The creativity of culling. The imposition of a viewpoint. Redaction. Call it what you will.

The internet is a junk heap. It's every frame that comes back from the drugstore. It's the contact sheet, the raw material, the unsorted mass. The first draft. In that context, what will rise in importance will be the opportunities and the occasions we have for selecting only the best of the best, for making extended visual arguments, for the creativity and inventiveness inherent in limits, for the formalized set of photographs that puts a photographer's best foot forward, no fluff, no excuses.

That's the future of the photo book, in my opinion. The form of the books won't change, because they needn't. Their purpose and meaning within the culture of what we do is what's evolving.

Mike

P.S. I originally meant to write a post on this topic to participate in Andy Adams' and Miki Johnson's crowd-sourced blog post about the future of the photo book. Alas, missed my deadline. Some things never change....

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Featured Comment by Paul: "Okay, it's not important to the concept, but have you seen this?"