Book Report

I told you I'd report back once Paul Trevor's book Like You've Never Been Away got here. It arrived very quickly from Bluecoat Press, Liverpool. (As I mentioned before, the way to get it is to go to the book's Amazon U.K. page, click on "3 new for £9.99," then select "Add to Basket" for the Bluecoat Press option. Ignore the bit on the Amazon page about the book being temporarily out of stock.)

The news is both good and bad. To begin with, the reproduction quality is quite fine—extremely fine for a £10 book. The hardest thing to get right in black-and-white—not just in reproduction, but in originals, too—is tonality, and the tonal properties of these pictures are rich and evocative for the most part, looking like real photographs, with their own tonal style, the middle values lowered on the scale like Rodinal used to do with shouldered films.

Considering that it's modestly-sized and only a paperback, the book is well-crafted and put together with skill and care, with sewn signatures and using good materials.

Unfortunately, however, most of the pictures are horizontals, and all the horizontal pictures are run double-truck, spread over two pages...uniformly, without regard for the content of each picture.

Some of the pictures are ruined by the gutter (a poor little fellow in a family portrait on p. 43 virtually disappears), and some more are only hurt by it. Fortunately, many of the pictures are "field-centered," with the loci of visual interest placed here and there in the visual field, rather than "object-centered," so the gutter doesn't ruin very many pictures. This picture, an example of the former, is okay...

(Granted it doesn't look great here—sorry about the poor quickie snaps—but it's a lot less offensive when you're holding the real book in your hand. You do get the sense that you can see the picture adequately.)

But this one is definitely ruined...

The relatively few vertical pictures, however, each reproduced cleanly one picture to a page, make it obvious how the book ought to have been printed—as a square, with the verticals and horizontals run same-size, one to a page. The overpowering temptation that book designers feel to sacrifice the visual integrity of photographs for the sake of size apparently becomes irresistible to them in the case of small books—they simply believe size is more important. They're wrong—visual integrity is more important, at least when the photographs are the point of the book and the photos aren't being used as mere page decor. The smaller (one page) verticals in this book are not perhaps ideally sized, but are large enough.

The intrusive gutter is only intolerable in a few of the pictures. Balance the problem against the fact that the book is very inexpensive, and that it's the only way to get the work if you can't get to Liverpool to see the show. On balance the work is still good to have. Still recommended, with the asterisk.

'From Craft to Art'
In this context I should bring up another beautiful little book that has fallen within my sphere recently, Robert Doisneau: From Craft to Art. This is a gorgeously made little volume, with very attractive embossed pale green paper covered boards (hardcover, that is) and complementary mustard-colored endpapers, and what I would call a mature design: elegant, skillful, but not extrovert. (Note that it may have several different covers: the one illustrated on the Amazon page is not the one I bought locally and that is shown here.) The book is well supported with text, mainly an extensively revised and translated c. 1980 long essay by Jean-François Chevrier (although modified for this book, it retains the tense of the original, written when Doisneau, who died in 1994, was still alive). I'm tempted to call it mainly a reader's book—it even has a bound-in placemaker ribbon; the plates don't start until page 81.

The reason I mention it, and at the risk of seeming like someone who will complain no matter what, is that this is one of the few books I've encountered recently where the reproductions really are too small. Again, we're talking about degrees here: most of the pictures convey adequately. The reproduction quality, typical of Steidl's black-and-white, is capable but not delectable (Steidl's books tend to have well-supported blacks—I mean blacks that are black enough—but that lack tonal separation in the shadows). Although the book design is exemplary, the largest of the pictures is only about 5 x 5", and many are smaller. As with the Trevor book, this affects different pictures in different ways. Many look fine; but some have too much detail to be seen comfortably at such small sizes—centers of visual interest to which the eye is led by the compositions just don't reward close looking; the details don't have space to breathe.

As with the Trevor book, I still recommend this—especially if you feel you'd like to read about Doisneau. It's an elegant little example of the bookmaker's art. (Here's the U.K. link and one for The Book Depository.) Asterisked, as with the above.

 

Steve McCurry masterwork
Finally, just a simple heads-up for the well-heeled: Phaidon's deluxe, slipcased, limited-edition McCurry retrospective, Steve McCurry: The Iconic Photographs, has just been published (last June 13th), at a list price of $400. Each oversized book—and I mean oversized; at 500x375mm (19.75x14.75 in.) and 320 pages, your coffee table had better have sturdy legs—is signed, and comes with an original photograph which is also signed by the photographer. There are 3,300 copies overall, 1,100 of those for the U.S.

Each book comes with a signed Lambda print of Flowerseller, Dal Lake, Srinagar, Kashmir, 1996

For those to whom the nearly $250 Amazon wants for this tome is a wee tad too dear, my old fave Looking East: Portraits by Steve McCurry is still in print for a more palatable $31 (and a bargain at that price, given its stellar printing quality). In fact I think I'll go console myself about not being able to afford the big book by pulling Looking East down off the shelf.

Here's the U.K. link (for the Iconic book, I mean), and here's one for The Book Depository.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by Andre: "+1 for Looking East: Portraits by Steve McCurry I've had a copy for a while now and I've considered buying a second just to cut the binding and frame some of the photos. I hope that's not too sacrilegious for the book lovers out there."

Mike replies: I've done that three or four times. In each case I've used "hurt" or incomplete copies of the books in question, or books with library markings, and I basically started from the other direction: it was inspired by first finding myself confronted with the hurt book and thinking about what I could do to salvage something of it without having to just throw it away. So maybe look for a cheap used copy that's somehow hurt or that has a binding in poor condition? For instance, Midtown Scholar Bookstore lists a copy on Amazon for $12.95 described this way: "GOOD—This is a hurt hardcover book with some tearing, scuffing, bumping, creasing and a torn dust jacket. Still, it is fully usable and the flaws are only cosmetic." Hard to tell from that if the pages are perfect, but you could call and ask.

I agree that the pages of Looking East are worthy of framing, more so than most posters.

Featured Comment by Paul Trevor: "Hi Mike, your criticism of my book is fair. There are some points I'd like to offer in defence of the publisher.

1. It was published primarily as the catalog for the show, so most people would already have seen the photographs.
2. Like wine, the book can only improve with time, as the pages gradually flatten!
3. The binding is excellent. This means the flattening process can be sped up without fear of destroying the spine by pressing down the center of open spreads or by bending the two halves of the book backwards. This has worked well with my copy.

"But I'll definitely pass on Stan B's comment about how books with a 'soft' spine can improve the viewing experience."

Comments

[Carl L]

Mike, This is where e books or digital on line books win out --no gutter and if you have a large monitor, you get that nice big 16X20 look or bigger. I still love books, but double trucks just destroy the integrity of the image. The old Josef Sudek book uses a fold over page that ends up having a crease but at least is not in a gutter.

[Alastair Smith]

And even the best publishers do it: I was looking at David Bailey's "Eye" and see that Steidl chose to size the square frames to match the long edge of the book, running about a quarter of the picture across the gutter onto the facing page. You can see the offending spreads on their web page, here: http://www.steidlville.com/books/974-Eye.html. Grrr.

[psu]

This is why photo books on a future retina display iPad will be awesome.

[Stan B.]

Not a great fan of double truck images myself, but it can actually be done right- when the book has a "soft" spine (eg- Wonderland by Jason Eskenazi, The Silence by Gilles Peress), it greatly facilitates flattening out both sides of the book and you're therefore quite able to enjoy a rather large image (from a rather small format) almost as you would a regular print! With a stiffly spined book, you'll never get to see or appreciate the entirety of the photograph- without destroying the book.

[David]

Funny you bring this up. I went to the MFA in Boston on Saturday, and they had a feature of Alex and Rebecca Norris Webb's Cuba pictures and the pictures on the walls were nicely presented, but then looking at the museum copy of their book, the same pictures with the subject right in the gutter or falling into it. Awful.

Also it was interesting to see how much different the pictures looked printed large on a wall as compared to relatively small in a book.

[hugh crawford]

It's about time that photography got out of the gutter.

[James McDermott]

Ah, Mike, you say tomato, we say .... Remaining on topic, if you attempted to use your lawnmower on a Liverpool (or any other English) yard, you'd have more than the price of 'gas' to worry about.

[Moose]

At least a couple of the on demand publishers of photo books have a nice solution to the problem. First Adorama came out with pages that float from a substrate (or whatever the correct term is)so that the actual photo lays flat and the two facing pages touch or almost touch - I've not seen an Adorama book in person.

Then MyPublisher came out with a similar product. The actual images are produced differently, Fuji Chrystal Archive paper for Adorama and inkjet on heavy, semi-glos stock for MyPublisher, but the binding design looks much the same.

The photo book I self published using MyPublisher, Three Days in Brooklyn, has no images across the gutter and was laid out taking in to consideration the curve into the gutter. The last few I've ordered have been in the new format, and I have to say it still makes a big difference, far more visually appealing.

I would not hesitate to go double truck with this binding. You can't expect anything of the sort in an inexpensive paperback. I do wonder when it will show up in more expensive books from the regular photo book publishers.

Moose

[Stan B.]

Let's hope if ol' Steve sells enough of those Limited Editions that he can finally afford to pay his assistants- instead of having to "hire" unpaid interns. I've long learned to separate the artist from his art, but there are some things that are still... inexcusable. And if Mr. McCurry is innocent of any exploitation (which I had really hoped was the case), he has had more than ample opportunity to not only set the record straight- but to set the example!

http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2011/04/competition-please-fill-in-the-missing-word/

[Sean]

Don McCullen's In England suffers some of the same fate only this book is much bigger. There simply was no need to do it, the majority of the horizontals are on a single page, the ones that run in to the gutter are unnecessarily large, they're not pictures that need to been seen larger than the others so the choice seems arbitrary. It's the same story with his smaller book Don McCullen

It only happens once in the little gem of a book, Robert Doisneau by Taschen. The book is small (8X6) but they've shown real restraint in not trying to make the picture bigger and the books all the better for it.

I had to sell a lens to pay a bill last week so I won't be buying Steve McCurry's latest offering. I'll get by with my copy of looking east

[Dan]

I recently bought Jason Eskenazi's book and was disappointed to find nearly every photograph was across the fold. Still, the man has a great story and I'm happy to support him in his work.

[Edd Fuller]

Bleeding photos off the edge of the page and running them through the gutter is the bane of photo book publishing. Surely designers can do better. I think part of the problem is that book designers see the book in the form of nice, flat two-page spreads on layout boards, and maybe don't want to think too much about what will happen to their lovely layouts in a bound book.

I think Elliott Erwitt's Personal Best is one of the worst examples of this that I have seen. Bleeds everywhere, and a couple of pictures were rendered almost incomprehensible after being drug through the gutter. I like Erwitt's work but this book was a travesty. I meant to return it, but since I am a lazy procrastinator, it is still in a pile somewhere in the house. I don't seek it out.

[Kenneth Tanaka]

What a shame that Mr. Trevor's book of excellent images was partially ruined by design. In my opinion, double-trucking is never an acceptable style of presentation in a book of photography. Never. Double-trucking an image detail as a means of introducing a new section can be very effective. But never for primary presentation.

@ Carl: I agree that I'd rather see a full electronic presentation than a d-t mash-up. But that can feature some equally nasty limitations, too.

@ Alistair: Indeed, I've seen that. It's like cropping an image, and nearly as awful to me.

I understand that this device makes a book's design -seem- more dynamic to a designer. But only to an amateur designer who's utterly blind and insensitive to what the hell s/he's designing the damn book FOR!

Don't be a cow. Just say NO! to this crap by returning d-t junk. It will stop.

[DerekL]

As a former bookseller... Paul Trevor's comment makes me cringe. Book bindings are not meant to be treated thus, and doing so destroys them.

[Moose]

"Book bindings are not meant to be treated thus, and doing so destroys them."

Then one must, at least in cases like this, make a decision - is it the physical book or is it the contents that are of value?

Complaints about "destroying" the book should be directed at the designer and publisher, not the buyer who must do damage to the binding in order to view the content for which it was purchased.

Like those who collect Leicas in original, unopened boxes, using x-rays to confirm contents, those who value books for their physical form, unused condition and/or rarity, including things like uncut sheets, rather than their content, are a tiny minority, with different values and goals.

I would argue that even a photo book with a binding that has come apart is not "destroyed" if one's value in it is in the images and they may still be viewed intact. In fact, they might then be of greater value to a viewer who sticks images split by the gutter together on a new backing so that they are now whole.

Moose

[Hendrik]

Has anybody actually seen McCurry's Iconic Photographs in the flesh, err paper and could comment on the printing? Personally I find the price very reasonable. I mean you do get one of 3300 signed A2 prints plus of course the book. (If you cut the binding you could easily plaster your house with a 165 really large McCurrys. Each for a Pound per the current BD price.)

[Hendrik]

Well, I still haven't seen it, but my mail has been answered by Phaidon. And it seems we're coming full circle back to the first book in this post, in that in the McCurry also "most of the pictures are horizontals, and all the horizontal pictures are run double-truck, spread over two pages...uniformly, without regard for the content of each picture."

I actually went to the Magnum website where you can view thumbnails and a slide show of all the images. One hundred and ten out of 165 by my count are horizontals. And at Phaidon's own website there's a peek inside feature which gives you an idea how those landscape formats are played out. Plus the few portraits are placed on opposing pages, as if they ran out of paper ...

I'm afraid that kills it for me, and I'm actually rather miffed about it.