The Photobook Hypothesis

Hypothesis: No one* has ever had enough space for photography books.

Theoretical explanation: Given shelving of any capacity, whether a yard or a mile, photobooks fill 110% of that space.

Corollaries: Culled, de-accessioned, and discarded photobooks are immediately replaced at a rate of 1.2 to 1; when building or buying shelving, present needs will always be underestimated by 20% with zero consideration made for future needs.

Psychological explanation: Any money that could be spent on adequate shelving always just feels like it would be better spent on...more books.

Irony constant: Neighbors, relatives and friends buying homes with large amounts of existing shelving will have little real interest in books of any kind and will decorate their shelves with a sparse smattering of meaningless tchotchkes, knickknacks, doodads and gewgaws and then tell you what a headache it was.

Mike

*Ever. Anywhere.

P.S. Take a look at this and ask yourself: what is the point of the rolling ladder if there are no books on the top shelf??

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Featured Comments from:

Globules: "It's almost as if the poster anticipated your gripe two years ago! :-) He said, 'Dude, I just finished it yesterday, give me a break.' Obviously room to acquire more books and knickknacks."

Mike replies: Ha! Good find. You can ignore me. I'm just jealous.

Albert Smith: "Space?...no problem. I have a 12x15 foot bedroom with nothing in it but books. The thing is that all my bookshelves have been maxed out for a couple of decades, so almost every inch of that bedroom's floor has vertically stacked books, with each stalagmite hitting two to three feet. Space, I have. What I can't do is find anything, especially any book at the bottom of the stack."

Geoff Wittig: "Truer words.... Last summer I tried to aggressively cull my photobook collection with my daughter's help, since my rather large library room had every shelf filled and most of the floor-space occupied by further stacks of books. I 'de-accessioned' an embarrassing number of duplicates along with books that no longer fit my collecting interests. When we were done I had eliminated about three-fourths of the floor piles and opened up some shelf space. But things are already resuming their relentless march toward entropy.

"On the other hand, it's evident to me that my ardor for photobooks has cooled in recent years. Huge numbers of books are still being published, if generally in small editions, but it's a lot harder to find titles of interest. The market is now atomized, silo'd, split among numerous little websites. In-person browsing is becoming a thing of the past as the photobook section at B&N shrinks and specialty bookstores disappear. Serendipitous finds are becoming rare. I still peruse photo-eye's weekly offerings but they mostly leave me cold.

"I fear I might be turning into a philistine in my old age. I still can't help accumulating Michael Kenna's books though. Visual crack cocaine."

Fulvio Senore: "Your hypothesis is so true. I currently have a pile of photobooks on a dresser and I don’t know where to store them: sooner or later my wife will kill me.

"By the way, have you considered cataloging your photobooks? I have my books in many different places and I was having problems knowing which books I own and where they are. Since I am a programmer I considered the idea of writing a program for such a task, but luckily I soon realized that life is too short and I looked for existing solution.

"I discovered that there are nice online platforms to handle book collections: I tried libib and I am very satisfied. It is free for personal use; it works in a browser and your books list is available to any device; and there is an app for smartphones that uses the camera as a barcode scanner for quick data entry. Barcodes are searched in very large databases and the platform retrieves things that are totally useless (but very nice to have) like cover images. I can store the book location as a tag so I know where I can find it.

"I enjoy cataloging my photobooks and refining the information obtained from online sources.

"It is even possible to download the database in a spreadsheet format as a backup. It should be possible to use it to import data in another program. Very recommended!"

Comments

[Grant]

The empty shelves mystery?
Upon completion of the bookcase, the poor fellow discovered that while the horizontal operation of the Cotterman ladder was easy, the vertical operation of said ladder caused severe acrophobia. Thus the top shelves were decorated in a Marie Kondo Style.

[Matt]

“[W]hat is the point of the rolling ladder if there are no books on the top shelf?” —Someone who makes zero provision for future needs. 😂 (It takes one to know one.)

[robert e]

Ladder guy is obviously not a photo book collector.

In fact, I was starting to get offended by the scarcity of books on that extravagant expanse of shelving when I learned that he built them out of Ikea shelves. The lack of books still seems criminal, but I'm also just impressed by the clever hack.

[Lisa Gorrell]

The same is true for genealogy books. Mine are stacked two deep. That sad bookcase needs more books and less decor.

[Robert Roaldi]

So you can dust the top shelf.

[Bear.]

Your hypothesis is almost certainly correct as it accords with the law of universal space requirement. That law states that for any given space in which any person or persons live (whether temporarily or permanently), (a) that person or persons always have 10% more possessions (technically known as "stuff") than will comfortably fit within the space, and (b) that any reduction of stuff always results in 20% greater replacement stuff. It therefore follows that your hypothesis is a corollary of the artwork display theorem, which proposes (consistently with the universal space requirement law) that any given artist (including photographers) will always have 10% less wall (or other display) space than that required to display the artworks in their possession, and which has its own corollary that de-acquiring the artwork always results in an acquisition of replacement artwork requiring 20% greater wall (or other display) space.

[Chris Bertram]

Well, this is true of books, period. When I retired from my academic job I brought hundreds of books home and most of them are in boxes in the loft (I have some shelving there too). I can't quite bring myself to part with them though. Photobooks keep coming, though I have consigned Alex Webb and the most recent Gruyaert to the birthday list, for now. I couldn't resist the getting then new Koudelka biography though (nobody with an interest in phototography should!).

[Nigel]

It's all true, until you have kids. Then either the money dries up, or you can steal their shelf space by squeezing the Lego together.

[Stephen Jenner]

Perhaps the cause is how books are introduced to us as we are dandled on our (usually) female parent knee?

Namely, picture books.

[Nikhil Ramkarran]

My bookshelves (struggling under the mass of all my books) have to accommodate all the books that are also shoehorned horizontally along the tops of other books that are properly (vertically) stored.

I don’t know what to do cause my little house has no more storage space anywhere.

Maybe the next deep dive should be on storage (maybe even display?) of photography and other books. The other books are secondary though.

[Speed]

"No one has ever had enough space for photography books."

Which may be good because no one* has ever had enough time to "read" photography books -- the ones that are mostly photographs. In my experience they are best borrowed from the library and returned, mostly "unread" before the penalty clock starts ticking.

On the other hand, photography books about the rich history of photography -- style, techniques and technology -- are, again in my experience, best owned and read and studied and read again.

*Really, very few.

[Ilkka]

Not only the ladder. A built-in book case with barely enough books to fill one shelf. Sad.

I have two layers of books on many shelves. One in front and another behind in the back. That doubles the shelf space for smaller books.

[Dave]

The guy who build the bookshelves and rolling ladder responded to a comment about no books being on the top shelf: (paraphrased) I *just* finished it. Gimme a break. :>)

Darn nice job, if you ask me.

[James Weekes]

Please never share this post with my wife.

[Michael]

Right. So right. And compound that with an artist the art books, and compound it again and again with both artist and photographer being professional scholars and keen novel readers. Then try moving house ...

[Dillan]

I completely agree! In fact, there cannot be enough room in any home for books in general, not just photo books. My bookshelves are all groaning under the weight of books stacked in front of more books. I have had to become a Kindle reader because I can no longer find room for more books, yet more books are still required. I am glad to hear that I am not alone!

[Sean]

You can’t ride stationary ladders

[John]

Shelves are a thing of the past, apparently. When we had to empty a deceased relative’s apartment a few years ago, nobody wanted the shelves. Even goodwill-type charities refused them and said that they recently had dumped all shelves in their inventory in containers because no one ever bought them.

[Dan]

Because the bar the ladder rolls on would be in the way?

[Globules]

It's almost as if the poster anticipated your gripe two years ago! :-)

Dude I just finished it yesterday give me a break. Obviously room to acquire more books and knick knacks

[Ha! Good find. You can ignore me. I'm just jealous. --Mike]

[Chris H]

This made me laugh - thanks Mike!

[David Brown]

Truth!

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Sure, fine; but in my bubble, it is at least as true if you remove the word "photo" from it.