{"id":1036,"date":"2010-06-24T09:39:13","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T09:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=1036"},"modified":"2010-06-24T09:39:13","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T09:39:13","slug":"photo-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=1036","title":{"rendered":"Photo Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest publication from Alec Soth’s ‘Little Brown Mushroom<\/em>‘ press is Bedknobs &\u00a0Broomsticks<\/a> by Trent Parke and it is probably sold out by the time you read this, though perhaps if you get an order in immediately you will be able to get one, at least if you have an address in the US it can be shipped to. At $18 it isn’t particularly expensive for a 40 page book around 7×8 inches, but it ain’t cheap either presumably because of the low print run.<\/p>\n

Looking at the sample pages on the link above, I didn’t feel inclined to buy it myself, but nowadays probably most people who are buying things like this do so not because they want the book but because they think it will be a good investment. A couple of years ago I bought a copy of Parke’s first book, the 1999 ‘Dream\/Life<\/em>‘, a considerably more substantial volume. Then it cost me about \u00a340, though I had to pay carriage from Australia. Now, as M Scott Brauer points out on dvaphoto<\/a>, the cheapest copy on Amazon is going for a mere $849.99, although a quick internet search did find one elsewhere at only $681. Still \u00a3400 more than I paid.<\/p>\n

There has been a huge rise of interest in photographic books in recent years, pumped up by a few publications dealing with them that have promoted some at times pretty obscure and unremarkable titles. Fortunately most of the best photographic books over the years have sold fairly well, and in a number of cases have been re-issued with improved print quality and sometimes better design and editing – and at times a great deal of interesting new content. Probably the best example of this is Robert Frank’s ‘The Americans’, where you can buy a recent edition on-line for less than \u00a320. It’s a book no photographer should be without, though if you have the money and the shelf space, the Steidl ‘Expanded Edition’, an extremely weighty hardback is worth paying around double that for. (And if you can get Robert Frank to sign it you can ask an extra couple of thousand when you sell it!)<\/p>\n

Unless you have a particular interest in bibliographic history, or are a collector, it isn’t worth buying any of the various earlier editions. They cost more and offer rather less. The Aperture edition I bought years back sells for anything from \u00a360 to \u00a3350 and some others can be found around that price, while the first US edition sells for thousands – and around \u00a310,000 for a signed copy. The book was first published in France and\u00a0 you can get a copy of that edition, in fairly reasonable condition for under \u00a32000!<\/p>\n

It really is madness. But at least in this case you can get the best edition cheaply.<\/p>\n

But I think for photographic publishing the future – or at least the foreseeable future – is with printing on demand. Which is why I’ve started to put my work <\/a>out through Blurb – and I’ve got another and very different book almost ready. It isn’t a perfect solution, and a few changes at Blurb – or another company offering a comparable services at similar prices but with fewer limitations would help greatly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest publication from Alec Soth’s ‘Little Brown Mushroom‘ press is Bedknobs &\u00a0Broomsticks by Trent Parke and it is probably sold out by the time you read this, though perhaps if you get an order in immediately you will be able to get one, at least if you have an address in the US it … Continue reading Photo Books<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photo-issues","category-photographers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1036\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}