Spring Book Sale: Paul Strand and Lee Friedlander

Welcome to The Online Photographer's 600th week on the Web! This morning we're offering three fine art photography books at nice discounts courtesy of our friends at Yale University Press. Since many people have been waiting eagerly for this, I'll give you the lowdown post haste and talk more about the books themselves in days to come.

First up is a matched pair: In the Picture: Self-Portraits 1958-2011 and Family in the Picture 1958-2013 by Lee Friedlander. The former was published by Yale University Press in conjunction with Yale University Art Gallery in 2011, the latter by Yale University Art Gallery in 2013. Both were designed by the distinguished book designer Katy Homans with separations by Thomas Palmer, and they're a little unusual in today's photo book world in that they were printed in the USA by Meridian Printing (a lot of book printing these days has moved to Asia).

They're smallish books, just under 9x10", but bricks at about 1 3/4 inches thick—there are over 350 plates in the Family book and more than 400 in the self-portrait book. I'll talk more about the pictures later, but the reproduction is rich and vivid, with a full, classic tonal range, very well done.

These two Lee Friedlander books were published at $75 each. We are offering them at $25 for one (yes, you can buy just one, our reasoning being that you might already have the other), or $40 for the set.

The third book is the magnificent Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography, which I already wrote a bit about here, published by (deep breath) The Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with Fundación MAPFRE in association with Yale University Press, in 2015. This is a magnificent book, I believe the best single Strand title ever published up to now. It was designed by Takaaki Matsumoto of Matsumoto Incorporated, New York, and printed by Trifolio S.R.L., Verona, Italy. It was published at $75, which I have to say made it a very good deal given the outstanding quality of the book and its luxurious reproductions. We are offering it here at $39.

I said I wouldn't say anything about the books now, but quickly: I think this is one of those cases where the book reproductions might actually be better than original prints, the reason being that Strand printed extremely dark, requiring strong light to see the prints properly, and the fashion in Museums lately is to keep light levels very low—a particularly bad combination in the case of Paul Strand. The illustrations here may be the absolute best way to see the work, if you're interested mainly in experiencing the content of the photographs. The balance of visibility and rich tonality is perfectly judged in the book.

How to order
There are two ways to order: on the Internet using a code, or by phone. Here are the links:

Lee Friedlander, In the Picture

Lee Friedlander, Family in the Picture

Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography

These links will take you to the US website of Yale University Press. (The UK website is not involved in the sale.) Enter the code YTOP1 if you are ordering only one Friedlander book, or YTOP2 if you are ordering both; the Strand will ring up at $39 using either code. You can also call the 800 number of Yale University Press to order over the phone, or if you have any problems. That number is 1-800-405-1619.

Note that you are welcome to post these codes and links on other sites and forums if you wish; the sale is not limited to people coming directly from TOP. All you need is the code to get the Yale/TOP sale prices.

Quantities are limited, so the sale will run for 30 days or until supplies run out. However we have generous quantities of the books, so you needn't be anxious about it. Well, generous quantities of two of the three, anyway.

Shipping will vary depending on how many books you order and how far they have to go. Those charges will be applied at checkout as per Yale's normal procedures.

Hope you like!
I really hope you appreciate this sale and can't wait to hear what you think of the books. Very exciting and gratifying for me; as I said the other day, I'm mad for photography books myself, and I love being able to offer these sales. And by the way, each book you buy includes a little dollop of a donation to TOP, so you'll be helping to keep the lights on here as we move toward Week 601, for which I say thank you. Very big thanks as well to Jim and Kali at Yale and to our friend Keith F. Davis, who put Yale and TOP together.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 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.

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

Collin J Örthner: "I love that this Paul Strand book sale allows shipping into Canada at a far more reasonable rate than your previous book sales! I greatly appreciate Strand's work and very much look forward to this volume. Thanks Mike!"

Speed: "Entered order. Worked fine with no changes to my computer or browser.

"How soon can I expect my book? :-) "

Mike replies: The estimate is that most books will ship within three days of ordering. Add ten days or so for in-transit time, and you should have your book in about two weeks, give or take a few days.

Maggie Osterberg: "Thank you, thank you, thank you! I've coveted a book of Strand's photographs like the one I just bought for years. And you're so right about his prints—I saw some of them at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) back when I was a student at MCAD and in the dim gallery, they were as dark as a charcoal drawing. I've read that he printed for them to be viewed in sunlit rooms, so he went darker. Don't know if that's true, but it would explain it. Again, thanks to you and Yale for making this book available to me at a price I can afford."

Comments

[Steve Buettner]

Links are currently not working at Yale. Clicking 'add to cart' does nothing. This is also true for non-sale books. Tried in three different browsers on MacOS Sierra.

[Steve, might be just a temporary rush. People have been waiting for this sale to start. Maybe wait for a few hours and try again? I'll be monitoring this throughout the day and the people at the bookstore will be keeping me apprised of progress and problems. So far there's nothing systemic going wrong. --Mike]

[Brian]

Just for reference, the codes aren't recognized by Yale's UK website. I guess overseas buyers need to order from the US site.

[Alan Wieder]

Just ordered by phone -- very, very easy.

[Peter Wright]

My order is in for all three. I had to do it by phone as the web site has no 'check out' capability. (The very helpful person on the phone thought this might be working tomorrow.) Also the international shipping charges are very reasonable this time – $20 to Canada.

[Chas]

Going into the book offers this morning, I started with the Strand book and managed to get it into my cart, though I have yet to figure out how to close the cart and make the purchase. This may be due to the various pieces of blocking software I run so I have a few things to check.

The Strand book is a bargain, but Yale also has fifty other books at half price in its "special offers" section including William Eggleston's "Portraits".

Lastly, a loud hurrah for Yale, an institution that actually seems to understand how to ship books outside the US at a reasonable price!

[Robert Lietz]

Hi Mike,

I just tried to order and had some problems. The promised "green cart" would not show up. I tried the phone number and was able to order that way. The representative had the codes and processed it, indicating the order would ship in the next couple of days. I am assuming TOP will still get its cut, but, since she also added that a number of people had problems processing orders with Yale today, I thought it would be a good idea to share my experiences and the success of the phone option if readers wanted to get their orders in early.

Thanks for your help in setting up the sale. I'm looking forward to the books as I'm sure other TOP frequenters are too.

Robert

[Michael Sebastian]

Mike, I don't think a nonfunctional shopping-cart link is a traffic-rush issue. Better check on this my friend!! I'm having the same trouble as Steve.

[I will post up-to-the-minute updates about this near the top of the post until I'm convinced no one is having any problems. Latest word from Yale is that the technical difficulty is fixed as of 11:20 a.m. ET. --Mike]

[John Krill]

I just ordered all three books. It went very smoothly.

Now with the Bresson book I ordered after reading the New Yorker article on the publisher Steidl I've now MAXED out for this year. And I've said that many times before and it never works.

[Harry Lew]

Hi, Mike,
Great offer! Just to let you know the shopping cart was still not working at 11:04. But I got right through via phone to the order department and the lady was very quick and helpful. So no problems from this quarter. Thanks again for doing these deals. Harry Lew

[Steve Buettner]

My order has gone through just fine. I found I had to turn off any and all script- and ad-blockers, no exceptions, to get the cart to work. I have my purchase confirmation now.

[James]

Mike, I cant find a place to enter the discount code.......

[Keep going. You'll get to a page that says "Shipping - Promotional Adjustments," where there is a box that says "Promo Code." --Mike]

[John Holland]

Done, done and done. Thanks to you Mike, I've been getting into photo books more and more. Now my summer perusing is all set.

[Hugh Conacher]

I was having trouble with the web site, so I called. First of all, the toll free number worked from Canada (they don't always)!

Second, and the real reason why I'm writing a comment, I was looked after by THE most helpful and nice sales agent that I have ever experienced on the phone. He was wonderful!

Finally, for those who are wondering, shipping to (Winnipeg) Canada is under $25 by ground and under $47 FedEx International Priority.

Excellent! Thanks Mike!!

[Marcelo Guarini]

My order went through without problems. The promo code is entered at the end, just before paying.

[Ryan]

Great sale. Thank you Mike.

[Peter Mountford]

Hey Mike

Having trouble ordering from Canada. I know Collin says it worked fine for him, but the ordering page balks at my Canadian postal code. Which is strange because you can select Canada from the shipping destinations and the province from the pull down menu, but entering the postal code gives you a big red X. I will try by phone tomorrow, but just wanted to let you know.

They look like beautiful books.

[Michael H]

Further to the question posed about "how long will it take?" I used the 1-800 number because I was having difficulty online and I was told it would be about 10 days (and I'm in Canada - surface mailing). As already noted by another reader ... the mailing costs to Canada were very reasonable - unlike the last sale which had mailing costs so high as to prevent me from taking advantage of the wonderful offers. Thanks, Mike.

[Frank]

Mike

The Yale site has the option to change to a UK location where the book is on offer for £50 with free UK delivery. If you go through the US Yale site to take advantage of your offer and add even the lowest cost postage (6 - 8 weeks delivery) the cost is over $74 dollars which Google tells me is equivalent to £57.93. Not really an offer for UK residents!

[I'm sorry to hear that. It seems to be the one downside with these book sales--that they are mainly for US (or NA) residents, with international ordering offered as a courtesy with sometimes minimal material benefits. Seems difficult to get around the fact that books are heavy and generally costly to ship.

Maybe I will try to arrange a "TOP book club" offer from a UK publisher next, for readers in the UK and Europe primarily, with US delivery offered as a courtesy. --Mike]

[Del]

It's also $20.00 to ship to Arizona, which has the same effect. Whatever happened to "book/media rate" mailing at the post office?

[MikeR]

Completely OT: Your patio furniture looks an awful lot like mine.

[Robert Lietz]

Hi Mike,

I received word from UPS My Choice that my books would be arriving tomorrow, 6/6/17. I ordered early the first day by telephone. I hope this is useful to buyers concerned about their own orders.

Thanks for your work on this and all the sales at TOP.

Robert