Incidentally...

...About the footer link in the Curtis post (I'll put it in the footer link of this post too): it's one of my "touchstone" books for reproduction quality, easily the best of any of the (very) many Curtis volumes I've seen.

The very hardworking Edward Sheriff Curtis, c. 1899.
He lived until 1952.

You might remember our "Book of the Year" a couple of years ago was The Printed Picture by Richard Benson. Richard is an intensely interesting fellow, a polymath of photo printing and reproduction who held some high position or other at Yale for a while, and even won one of those MacArthur "genius grants" we were talking about the other day. I don't know him, and I know precious little about him, really (rumor has it there was a New Yorker profile of him once—I really should go look that up), but I keep catching wind of various of his many accomplishments. Native Nations was a book that he masterminded the reproduction for, and it is a beautiful book—I've been enamored of it since first acquaintance. It's the only monograph representation of Curtis in my library, and the only one I want. Worth going considerably out of your way to find.

Since I know someone will ask, this and this are also among those "touchstones"...and this (the original 1962 hardcover version only! Although the upcoming reprint is going to be very interesting to check out) and this....

Damn, and now I've gotten started, and my brain will be thinking of others for the next seven hours.... :-)

By the way, I'd personally rather have Native Nations than the $1.8m set that sold at Swann yesterday. Owning the latter would be too much responsibility for me!

Mike

P.S. I'm scheduled to have lunch today with a TOP reader who's passing through town, and TOP World Headquarters is afflicted by an ordinary but annoying plumbing malady that is doubtless going to be sucking down my time in great gulps. The anticipated arrival of the plumber is the great hoped-for event of the day, even the week. (We're keeping our fingers crossed.) It could be a little quiet around the website today. Sorry about that.

P.P.S. I'm beginning to think these book links in the footers aren't going to work after all...I'll probably end up wanting to explain half of them.... :-\

UPDATE: I was wrong in my expectations...as things turned out this could not have been a more lovely day. To begin with, my son was accepted today to the college he wants to go to! He'd managed the application process all on his own. I'm sure many parents reading this know just how I feel.

Then I enjoyed a long lunch with a very nice couple from Virginia, Dennis Mook and his wife Kathy (I hope I guessed the spelling right). Dennis, who has been reading my blatherings since at least the '90s, captained not one but two police departments during his career in law enforcement. Along the way he did a lot of forensic photography—murder scenes, autopsies—and closed out his career with NCIS*. When I mentioned Milwaukee's Chief of Police, he said "I know Ed!" and told me all about him. Dennis has been a devoted photo enthusiast all his life, and now in semi-retirement has built a good relationship with a stock house; he and his wife were driving back from the West, where he'd been collecting more material with his new D800E. He's a high-energy guy and we swapped stories at quite a clip. One could not ask for more agreeable lunch companions than the Mooks.

And then, I returned home to find all the plumbing work done, to my surprise.

I'll go to bed happy tonight. And no, not just about the plumbing.

Dennis Mook replies: "Mike, it was entirely Kathy's (she is happy you spelled her name correctly) and my pleasure to have spent a wonderful hour and a half together.  You exceeded my expectations of being friendly, gracious and conversive. I now admire you and your work even more. I hope we can get together again sometime in the future as I really enjoyed our conversations. If I ever can be of assistance to you, please don't hesitate to contact me.

"On a related topic, two hours of 4-lane, stop-and-go traffic around Chicago, heavy traffic all the way into Michigan and then strong winds, fog and heavy rain the last 50 miles of our 350 mile drive was more than I bargained for. But, then again, I would do the day the same way again.

"Thanks for your company."

*Most Americans know the term because there's a popular TV drama by that title (which Dennis says he doesn't watch). For those of you outside the broadcast area, the acronym stands for Naval Crime Investigative Services.

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
A book of interest today:

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Ken Tanaka: "Bensen's The Printed Picture is among my most treasured reference books. Anyone who really enjoys looking at printed images should have this book on his/her shelf, even if they do not create or print images themselves. The DeCarava retrospective book has been my treasured catch of the summer. I've really become a great admirer of Roy DeCarava's work. My wife gave me a wonderful copy of The Sound I Saw for my birthday. But I really still wanted that 1996 retrospective. They aren't hard to find, per se, but in fine or better condition they're a bit rich$. But I finally scored one from a public library sale this summer. Yes, there's a library stamp inside the front board but the book and its jacket are in like-new condition! For $25."

Mike replies: About that Roy DeCarava retrospective...well, let me put it this way: if I got incarcerated and was allowed to take one photographic monograph to my prison cell with me, that would probably be the one. I probably look through it at length once a year, and I actually look forward to the occasion.

Mark Steigelman: "Thanks for reminding me about that book [Roy DeCarava: A Retrospective]. I looked at it today for the first time since I brought it home. I designed that exhibition and I was given that book which DeCarava and Galassi both signed. Of all the photographers I met while working on exhibitions, DeCarava was definately the nicest and most humble."

Comments

[Dave Gess]

Keep those book links, no need to explain them BUT the explainations do sell books. You have gotten me to spend more $ than I really should on these darn things ;) Means I have to buy less beer;)

[Steve G, Mendocino]

Mike:

I'll vote for keeping the book links in - I've been enjoying them. Also enjoying the Walker Evans book, which arrived while I was out of the country.

[sss]

"A Single Person Making A Single Thing", The New Yorker, December 17, 1990.

[DenCoyle]

This will surely be one not to be overlooked,,, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/193443549X/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00

[David Dyer-Bennet]

The photo books strike me as something that you're both passionate and knowledgeable about. Thus it seems to me a good thing when you're drawn into writing about them a bit. Whether that's your best use for the time you'll have to settle for yourself in the end, of course.

[Gary]

New Yorker, December 17, 1990, pg 48.
by Calvin Tomkins
(I have a digital subscription which gives you online access to every issue back to 1920-something. Pretty cool.)

[Rob Atkins]

DeCarava's The Sound I Saw is one of my desert island books, alongside American Photographs, The Americans, and about a thousand others. Think I'll have to add The Printed Picture to the list.

So many books...

[Jeff]

The book, Roy Decarava Photographs, published 15 years earlier (1981) by the Friends of Photography is another beautifully printed work, which holds its own against the Retrospective.

Neither substitutes, however, for the Retrospective print exhibit, which still resonates in my brain. His prints haunt and glow.

I wouldn't want to list my book 'touchstones' (that include ones you mention)...some are tiny and more obscure, and some are huge (the Collection from The Gilman Paper Company, for instance...not a monograph, but still a visual treat and technical marvel).

[Gary]

Re: The Printed Picture, more or less a video version of it here... http://www.benson.readandnote.com/

[Lars S.]

Regarding the links below the posts: I really like the witty ways you sometimes select what goes there. For example putting the D4, the current "low light king" below the article about the P3200 just put a smile on my face. I guess not a lot of people bought a D4 through that link (not exactly something you buy on impulse) but it was worth the joke.

[Earl Dunbar]

So THAT is an image of Edward S. Curtis. How is it I never even wondered about what he looked like, much less bothered to look? What a handsome man, and a face that is so intensely magnetic.

[Mike Johnston]

"For example putting the D4, the current "low light king" below the article about the P3200 just put a smile on my face."

Mine too. (No, nobody bought one.)

Mike

[Sarge]

Were Edward Curtis' photos among those used in Dee Brown's book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee?

[QT Luong]

The 1962 "In Wildness" of Eliot Porter was a landmark book for many reasons (see http://www.terragalleria.com/blog/2012/09/12/eliot-porter-books/) and certainly well ahead of his time in terms of reproduction quality, but if you compare some of the plates with more recent books, there is no doubt that color printing has improved considerably since then, so, except for historical reasons I would not consider it a touchtone for reproduction.

[Mike Johnston]

"except for historical reasons I would not consider it a touchtone for reproduction."

Well, then you and I differ in our opinions on that point.

Mike

[Paris]

Congratulations and best luck to Zander.

And luck to you too, Mike. Big change coming.

[ChazL]

Mr. Curtis certainly cut a dashing figure as a young man, and you've shown a fine portrait of him.

The look is truly timeless-- had I not seen your caption identifying the subject and approximate date, I might have thought that I was looking at a white pimp from a '70's "blacksploitation" movie like Shaft.

Any idea of who the photographer is on this one, Mike?

[Graeme Pow]

I do wish you'd stop doing this, this, and this with your hyperlinks. It not only conceals the destination of your link, it's this, too! Why Your Links Should Never Say "Click Here" is an article worth reading.

[Mike Johnston]

Graeme,
Stop doing that, it's annoying.

Mike

[expiring_frog]

Many congratulations to Zander! I'm not a parent and I can still imagine how you feel :D.

[BrianW]

It perhaps also should be mentioned (maybe it has) that Richard Benson actually printed Paul Strand's last (three?) portfolios, under Strand's supervision.