'Like Musical Instruments,' Portraits of Poets

Reviewed by Carl Weese

This hefty softcover book—228 pages of text and pictures at traditional letter-size—is really two things at once: a collection of 83 portraits by photographer John Sarsgard, and an anthology of contemporary American poetry edited by Larry Fagin.

For the poems, the selection emphasizes diversity, not favoring any one style or camp. There are young and old, famous writers and relative unknowns. With the better known contributors, an effort was made to select some of their lesser known work, so even readers up to date on the poetry world will find some surprises. I was an English major many years ago but I haven’t stayed current in the field. I’m finding Larry’s curating to be a great guide to introduce me to current work, and I’m happy that he sought out a wide range of styles and approaches.

On the photographs, first, disclosure: John is a friend, who has studied platinum printing with me. His portraits are utterly direct and straightforward, devoid of any hint of pretense or artifice. His rapport with the poets is obvious, and he has told me that the conversations during the sessions were mind-blowing-amazing. He makes the exhibition prints in platinum/palladium, and they are progressing to several gallery venues around the country.

Something to study in these portraits is the way John uses every bit of the frame. The environments—I’m not going to use the term “background”—are rich with suggestion even though they generally take up little space compared to the human subject. In most cases he asked the poet to choose the location for the shoot, and the places selected are often resonant, adding another layer to the connection John makes with his subjects.

The pictures are all made by available light, on medium format Tri-X film, with a Pentax 645 and normal 75mm lens. That last detail is telling. Selection of the normal rather than the more typical “portrait length” of 150mm is partly responsible for getting those significant surroundings into the frame and keeping them legible. It also draws photographer and subject physically closer, which again aids the sense of connection that comes across in these pictures.

The publishing team, including Sarsgard, Fagin, and Larry Moore of Broadstone Books, wanted to keep the price “at a level that poets might afford.” This leads to a small downside. To reach that price, they had to print overseas, by remote control, using CMYK-monochrome printing. The reproductions are good, but not at the level of a first-tier print house working with tritone or quadtone plates—however that book would cost $80–90, not $39.95. I think they made the right compromise.

If you like portrait photography, or poetry, this book is for you. If you love both, it’s like getting two for the price of one.

Also, if you order from the publisher and mention that you read about the book here at TOP, they'll discount it to $30 for you.*

Carl

*[Despite the discount, the publisher and the authors actually get to keep more money for each book if you buy it through our link than if you buy it from a bookstore or from another online source. —Ed.]

Carl Weese is a photographer, writer, and workshop teacher, based in Connecticut. There are many online galleries of his pictures at his website, and he publishes a daily picture blog.

©2015 by Carl Weese, all rights reserved

ADDENDUM by John Sarsgard, the book's photographer: "I appreciate Carl writing the review, and certainly hope folks will buy the book, but I also want to take the opportunity to encourage others to consider a long term personal project. I met and engaged with over a hundred poets, and gained a perspective I would never have any other way. I am still in contact with many of them.

"I hope many who have not done so will think about a group of people they would like to meet and know just a bit. I had the benefit of an insider collaborator, but I also found that people will lead you to others if they like the work. Poets are under appreciated by the larger society these days, and most I contacted were happy to participate. I'm sure rock stars and novelists would be harder.

"I tried to keep the technical things simple and second nature so I could spend my time engaging with the people. One camera, one lens, one film, natural light, tripod or not as necessary, meter the face.

"Carl mentioned that the poets frequently picked the location. I always asked, but also made sure I had a few ideas just in case. "I dunno," followed by "I'll get back to you" from me would have been lame. I did learn how hard working in a park can be on a sunny day, with hot spots in the background everywhere. Cartier-Bresson liked cloudy days for good reason.

"I asked everyone to sign a simple release at the end of the session that promised prints, with a space for a mailing address. Most signed right away. Some wanted to see the prints first. They all signed eventually. I don't think releases are technically necessary for this work, but I wanted to make clear what I might do with the images. I gave them all permission to use the images for anything they wanted, and a number have been used as author photos for books.

"Finding a publisher was hard. More than one told me that photo books are the second lowest volume category, and poetry sells even less…and that I had some nerve to ask them to publish something that combined the two! Larry Moore at Broadstone is a brave small publisher who loves both poetry and photography and is not in the game to get rich.

"I hope many will explore such a project. Think of what might happen!"

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

scott kirkpatrick: "I'm not sure how to purchase the book from its publisher and get the $30 price Carl refers to. The website doesn't do it automatically, and the publishers should not be looking forward to a flood of emails requesting something like a discount code? So I just bought it anyway."

Mike replies: Carl has now added a link that goes to a special TOP readers' page that applies the discount. It wasn't up at first. If you tried to buy the book soon after the post went up and didn't see how to get the discount, but ordered the book at full price anyway, you'll be contacted by the publisher.

Hugh Smith: "I looked for the book on Broadstone's website and was pleasantly surprised to find Larry offering a special discount to TOP readers. While I appreciate a bargain as much as the next guy/gal, I am purchasing the book without the discount simply to support the publisher and authors of this work. Just my two pesos."

Mike replies: I added a note to the post to this effect, but you should be aware that the publisher gets MORE support if you use our link than if you don't. In fact, the publisher wanted Carl to review the book on TOP in part because it allows them to keep far more of the purchase price than they get to keep using other channels of distribution. So ordering it here gives the producers of the book the maximum of support, despite the fact that it's cheaper for you.

marcin wuu: "I'm curious, why is CMYK printing cheaper than tri- or quadtone? It should the other way around or the same, since you use just three (or four at most) plates? Or is it printed 'on demand' on a laser printer?"

Carl replies: Marcin, I wasn't involved in production of this project, but in general terms, CMYK is Standard Operating Procedure at large printing firms. For monochrome, author-provided neutral or toned RGB files are fed through a batch action to convert to CMYK, ideally using a press-specific custom ICC profile. Then the job runs with many other jobs through high-volume presses that run nearly 24/7. (Pro tip: toning is good in this instance; true neutral is fiendishly difficult to achieve on press in CMYK.)

For duo-/tri-/quadtones, everything has to be done custom (which is a good thing if you can afford it) from creating the separations with specific pantone color specs and custom PS curves for the channels, to filling the press fountains with the custom inks, etc. At a mass production place the pressmen carefully keep the press running "on specification." At a high-end fine art printer, that's the starting point. Then the pressman works with the artist and/or designer to tweak the controls until what is coming out of the press is better than the proofs. Then he finishes the run keeping the press exactly on, not specs, but the signed-off-on sheet.

Going "on press" as a designer was some of the most exciting—and stressful—work I've ever done. Standardized production saves money, custom attention costs money.

Comments

[Darlene Almeda]

I will be ordering this book to share with my students. What a great project and collaboration between artists!

[John Sarsgard]

If you're interested in more images of this kind, there are lots of poets on my Photoshelter site http://sarsgard.photoshelter.com along with other portraits of not-so-well-known celebrities.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Thanks for this, Mike and Carl. I love this style of portraiture and lately have been looking for away back into contemporary photography, so this will be perfect!

[Peter Wright]

I ordered mine. Books like this have more to really say about photography than most of us realize.

[Ken Tanaka]

This looks like quite a successful project. My knowledge of poetry and its world is nearly nil. But I would imagine that such a collection of portraits would be a wonderful treasure for anyone who loved contemporary poetry.

This does bring to mind a very similar project. Behind Photographs: Archiving Photographic Legends, by Tim Mantoani was a very successful project to create large-format Polaroid portraits of renowned living photographers with a print of one of their best known images. It was a very well-done book which is now available only in the after-market, but at reasonable prices. It's well worth grabbing a clean copy while you can (if you're interested in photography).

[John Ironside]

Re marcin wuu's question on book printing techniques, 'The Printed Picture' by Richard Benson, a MoMA exhibition catalogue from 2008, was reviewed in these hallowed pages by Geof Witting (2008). I was and remain delighted by this book. It describes some of the techniques and problems in a very accessible way; it's still available today on Amazon.

[marcin wuu]

This is interesting for me, because I do a lot of photo printing, usually duo, or tritones for photographic albums, and it's something that I do as a DTP specialist - I mean, converting RGB to duotone when laying out the book. And it's cheaper in print where I come from - but perhaps it's market specific thing.
Thanks for the answer. Food for thought - perhaps I should charge more.