The Renaissance of Books

I believe that even in the age of Facebook, My Space, and Twitter, the printed book is experiencing a renaissance of sorts.

True, I have a personal passion for finely edited, designed, and printed books, and all the more so if they are books of fine photography, but I think that the tide of passionate interest in books is not mine alone.

Previously, I have stated here that one of my goals is to launch Lúz Press, a portfolio and book publishing division of Lúz Gallery, and it would not be possible to even consider this venture if there was not a growing market , all be it a niche market, and appreciation for the art of book making.

If you have not already discovered the work of these two photographers, Dan Winters and Simon Roberts, I want to bring them, and their recent book projects to your attention.

Dan Winters is an editorial portrait photographer based in Texas, who has recently released Periodical Photographs, published by Aperture.

More then a simple book of portraits, Periodical Photographs reflects Winters' personal interest in typography, artifacts, and structure, revealing his deeper artistic sensibilities.

For an illustrated and descriptive look at the making of this fine work go to the Society of Publication Designers blog site.

Across the Atlantic, British photographer, Simon Roberts has spent over a year traveling around England in a motor-home working to document the social landscape on a large format 5×4 camera.

Informed by the photography of his predecessors and by the romantic tradition of English landscape painting, he depicts the English at leisure within pastoral landscapes. His photographs explore the notion that nationhood and what it means to be English, as found on the surface of contemporary British life, encapsulated by banal everyday rituals and activities.

Above Image  - An unbound proof copy of the book hot off the press.

Roberts' blog We English is always a good read, and although he seldom pimps his own work on the blog, his recent posts documenting the production and printing (at EBS in Italy) of his soon to be released second book, We English, published by Chris Boot, is a must read for any photographer with hardcover aspirations.

QG

The Great Wall

Editing and sequencing have always been important to me in the process of working with photographs. Editing is where you discover your style, and through the process, come to an understanding of what your work as a photographer has to say and what unifies your images.

In my opinion, editing can NOT be done on a computer screen, and MUST be done with prints!

This is for the simple reason that our brains work much faster then even the best computer and as we train our eyes and our minds to look at images, we learn to see relationships between images that only come with the ability to scan a large collection of photographs at once and then move them around quickly.

Regardless of how you capture and image (film or digital), making small work prints really allows you to lay your work out, edit it, move images together or apart, and to see the relationships between images that modify the impact of how a photograph reads. This is the first step to sequencing images for exhibitions or book layout, which is a huge topic that I will come back to one day, but for now I actually have another purpose.

As we move closer to the opening date of our first exhibition at the gallery - yes we still open in September, but I will tell you that September feels very close right now - we are working to produce our first Exhibition Catalogue, by which I mean a small book or bound collection of the artist's work, for David Pollock's exhibition. The catalogues that we publish with each feature exhibition will be beautifully designed and printed, collectable pieces of art in their own right and these exhibition catalogues represent our first steps towards launching our full book publishing division... one day not so far away.

Producing these small books is very much a team effort and I am fortunate to work with graphic and book designer, Jocelyn Mandryk, (pictured above working in my studio) as well as with author and editor Laura Trunkey, who has graciously agreed to edit the text for these books as the various writers supply the introductions to the works of artists we are featuring.

To make the process of editing images, as well as the page layouts for books easier I constructed "The Great Wall", a steel wall in my studio that allows us to post images and pages up with magnets so we can see them clearly and still easily play with the selection or sequencing. The wall has the added benefit of allowing us to live with these works posted up for a period of time, thus allowing a more considered study of the layout as you get closer to the final edit... a process that is less friendly if you are taking over the dinning room table or studio floor.

Here are a couple more photos from our editing session earlier this evening...

and a small preview of the book layout and design for Sign, Symbol + Nature.

QG