Three Books Chosen by Ken Tanaka

Written by Ken Tanaka

2019 saw the publication of another crop of excellent, engaging photobooks. Frankly I cannot imagine nominating any of those I’ve seen as “best.” But if I had to choose a few most likely to be of interest to my fellow TOP readers it would be these.

Let’s start with two books associated with museum exhibitions. 2019 was the year that photography’s first commercial format, the daguerreotype, got new and deeper looks. The Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art each produced superb 2019 exhibitions that highlighted the earliest roles of daguerreotype photography in various documentary work.

Golden Prospects: Daguerreotypes of the California Gold Rush
Jane L. Aspinwall, with contributions by Keith F. Davis
Hall Family Foundation / The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2019

The California Gold Rush of 1848-1855 was inarguably one of most significant social, political, and economic events in 19th century American hisory. Today such events (or even our lunch plates) are covered by photography in every imaginable (and unimaginable) way. But in 1848 photography was brand new. There were no conventions or best practices for its use. And yet dageurreotypists soon “became the mediators of the world’s truth.” They quickly learned to weave a contiguous visual story fabric from what otherwise seemed like utter chaos.

Golden Prospects represents a remarkable body of curatorial scholarship on a foundational moment in photography’s history. It also represents an eye-opening view of just how good photography became so quickly. Considering the cumbersome nature of producing usable dags at all, it’s astonishing to see so much work from so many collections gathered to put such clear focus on such a big moment.

Golden Prospects is not technically a photobook. But it is a mesmerizing deep stare into one of photography’s earliest opportunities to construct a big story for the rest of the world.

Monumental Journey: The Daguerreotypes of Girault de Prangey
Stephen C. Pinson (and many other contributors)
The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2019

Here’s the basic setup for Monumental Journey: Girault de Prangey, a rich 37-year-old single guy from northeastern France with some formal art education, becomes obsessed with the new daguerreotype photo tech. About 1842, just a few years before the start of the California Gold Rush (above), he begins three years of travel throughout the Mediterranean region, where he extensively and methodically photographs landmark sites and scenes he visits. Upon returning to his home he meticulously labels and organizes the roughly 1,000 resulting plates and stores them in custom-made wooden cases. He writes a few articles on his work and even self-publishes a book of some of this work, but his work is largely ignored. So eventually the wood cases are stashed in his attic, not to be re-discovered until long after his 1892 death.

There is a long, somewhat sinuous story between the rediscovery of this work and today. Some pieces were lost and nearly a century of neglect have not left this work in pristine condition. But it still shines as among the most thoughtful and skillfully-created collection of amateur dauguerrotypes in existence. Many of Girault’s images represent first-and-only records for many archeological sites and subjects which have since been lost to time and change. Additionally, since Girault had no need to conform to commercial practices (i.e. standard enclosure sizes and aspect ratios) he could make his plate exposures according to the needs of his subjects. So we see far more panoramic and vertical plates than are usually seen in other collections.

Like Golden Prospects, Monumental Journey is not a photobook, per se. It’s an exhibition catalog and a body of scholarly work. But Girault de Prangey’s work represents one of the first and most earnest efforts at architectural and archeological documentation with photography.

And here is one standout book not about daguerreotypy:

André Kertész: Marcher Dans L’Image (Walk in the Picture) [French only]
Cédric De Veigy
André Frère Éditions, 2019
Link to the exhibition website

If you’ve admired André Kertész’s work as long and as deeply as I have you may imagine you’ve seen everything there is to see. And then something like this comes along to make you realize you’re not there yet.

Drawn from scans of Kertész’s archive negatives in Paris, Marcher Dans L’Image is a largely passive analysis of how Kertész made his framing and composition choices for a variety of scenes he shot with his Leica between 1930 and 1936. I can guarantee that most of the images and scenes will be new to your eyes, as most have never been published.

If you’re someone fascinated by looking at famous photographers’ contact sheets you’ll be over the moon with this book. Images, all beautifully printed, are not presented as raw contact sheets but rather as page layouts showing series alternatives.

Do note that the book is entirely in French. No, I don’t really read French. But due to the magic of the Google Translate app and my iPhone I can read just about anything. Mercifully, there is relatively little text to translate as the presentation is mostly visual. So no need to fear that you’ll not understand the material.

Marcher Dans L’Image is only available from the publisher or on the secondary market. It accompanies an exhibition, open until February 9th, 2020, at the Robert Doisneau House of Photography, 1 rue du Division du Général Leclerc, 94250 Gentilly, France.

Ken

Longtime reader and occasional contributor Kenneth Tanaka has been actively engaged in photography and the arts for many years. His own recent book To Build, a lyrical look at the accidental beauty of large-scale construction sites, was recently published on Blurb. It was distilled from approximately a dozen years of working. It's expensive in paper, but you can see all the photos in the preview at Blurb—and I recommend you do that! —Ed.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Kenneth Tanaka. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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

JOHN B GILLOOLY: "Just purchased the Kertesz book and really look forward to getting it. This is a perfect intersection of my photographic interests. He is one of my favorites and I'm always very interested in the editing process employed by various photographers. Thanks for the suggestion."

hugh crawford: "Thanks for the pointer to Girault de Prangey. I can't believe I missed this up until now."

Moose: "Re 'His own recent book To Build, a lyrical look at the accidental beauty of large-scale construction sites, was recently published on Blurb.' It's only half January, and I'll bet Mr. Tanaka's book will be my photo book of the year. Not my sort of subject, other than a few abstract reflections, but I was mesmerized. The colors, shapes, perfect moments in human motion, are wonderful. But the compositions! What a masterful eye. Also a great sense of order and facing page selections. I've enjoyed some of your work before, but none has grabbed me like this."

Comments

[Victor Bloomfield]

Beautiful work, very well presented by the full-scale Blurb preview. I can't help but wonder (and be jealous) about access to some of those sites.

Victor Bloomfield

[Allan Ostling]

Ken,

About 32 years ago you bought my SMC Pentax-M* (star) 300mm f/4 lens. Now that I have gone back to film, I wish I'd kept it. I take comfort in knowing it is in good hands. Thanks for the wonderful book recommendations.

[Nigel Voak]

Thank's for making me aware of this book. It took me two seconds to decide to go to the editors site.

I love the work of Kertèsz, I have learnt so much from the viewing of his pictures.

It is also nice that it has not got the huge price tag of many photo books that are published these days.

[JH]

This reminded me of an exhibit of Dauguerotypes at the Getty in 2015 http://news.getty.edu/in-focus-daguerrotypes.htm

The picture of Edgar Allan Poe popped into my head immediately.
If you want to read about the Getty collection they published a book about it in 1998:

GETTY COLLECTIONS
The Silver Canvas: Daguerreotype Masterpieces from the J. Paul Getty Museum
Bates Lowry, Isabel Barrett Lowry
1998
256 pages

Read the book online here:
http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/0892365366.html

[Hendrik]

I would recommend a visit over at the Photo-Eye Blog and their very extended list of 2019 Favorite Photobooks. They ask more or less well-known photographers to name their favorite, to kick off Martin Parr, no less, with a book that graced these pages here very recently, too http://blog.photoeye.com/2019/12/2019-favorite-photobooks-day-one.html. Stretching over thirteen entries you get a very wide and varied spectrum of today's photobooks.

[Hans Muus]

Re. the fourth book, the author’s own ‘To Build’: what a wonderful series. A very personal ‘testimony and recollection’, to use his own words, and beautifully executed, photographically as well as typographically. Also: no bokeh-trickery at all :-). Thank you, Mr. Tanaka !