Mary Virginia and I are excited to be hosting the first of a years’ worth of lectures and seminars centered around our forthcoming book, Publish Your Photography Book!
Friday, January 21, 7:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Lecture and Conversation: “To be Published or Self Publish: A Publishing Primer”, followed by a conversation with special guests Mark Klett and Lisa M. Robinson.
The traditional publishing path has the advantage of a highly specialized team that brings experience with design, production, marketing and distribution systems to the table. In a self-publishing scenario you can create exactly the book you envision, but without the input and expertise of seasoned professionals at a publishing house. Which scenario is best for you?
In this presentation, coauthors Darius Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson will provide an overview of both avenues to publishing toward helping artists in determining the pros/cons of each as they relate to their own projects.
Immediately following their talk, Himes and Swanson will be joined by special guests MARK KLETT and LISA M. ROBINSON, both of whom have had experience with bringing their artwork to publication.
Saturday, January 22, 9:30 am – 5:00 pm
Seminar:“Publish Your Photography Book: An In-Depth Look”
In this one-day seminar, Himes and Swanson will offer participants an in-depth overview of the publication process, from concept through production and on to marketing the printed title. They will share resources from their forthcoming title, Publish Your Photography Book (Princeton Architectural Press, Winter 2011).
Register now with Art Intersection to reserve your space (limited seats available) in either the lecture or seminar.
Join our mailing list (here) to learn about upcoming lectures, events, and to be the first to know when copies of the book hit bookstore shelves!
I was recently alerted to this extremely useful listing of upcoming international photography portfolio review events for 2011 and 2012. It is found on the website of independent curator Moritz Neumuller, The Curator Ship. Another useful listing of review events, with a bit more international diversity, is found at the website for The Festival of Light.
Neumuller also has a a list of available opportunities, grants and useful information in the field of photography and visual arts.
Some of them are calls for participation, others are study grants, residencies or testimonials. (You might want to bookmark the site.)
Lectures about publishing that I recently gave are available to view online:
The New York Public Library, December, 2010, with co-author Mary Virginia Swanson (below), and another by
The Forward Thinking Museum, December, 2010.
Two months ago, in an “open letter” to The New York Times posted on his blog, the bookish and book-centric photographer Alec Soth raised some interesting points that I’d like to pick up on. His letter—an appeal, really—was in response to both the coverage, by The Times, of the recent NY Art Book Fair, (sponsored by the ever-rebellious and now-well-established non-profit organization Printed Matter) as well as a blog posting over at The News Gallery.
Soth had just participated in the NY Art Book Fair with his publishing company* Little Brown Mushroom. By all accounts over the last two months (meaning, in emails from friends, acquaintances, colleagues at other publishing companies and the many Twitter, FB and blog postings) the fair was a big success both in attendance and financially for many of the participating organizations.
The blog posting that got under Alec’s skin had reported on the event and commented on the scores of attendees who thronged PS1. But there was, essentially, a condescending tone to the piece, which then went on to quote “a real author”, Paul Auster (who kind-of has nothing to do with art books in any professional way, but is a really good author). What particularly irked Soth** was the expression, by the writer, that the NY Art Book Fair was “technically” an art book fair, but that there were titles by writers and philosophers as well. (Read it here). The writer emphasized the non-art book writers and publishers, thus skewing the impression of what the fair was about (and why the scores of people had come out to attend).
It also irked me, on several different points. One of those is a sore spot I have surrounding the media discussion on publishing in general. According to the larger cultural and journalistic media outlets (both in print and in other forms), the outlook on publishing is decidedly not rosy. “The Death of Publishing” is proclaimed regularly, and then CEOs of major publishing houses are quoted, recounting drops in sales and other horrors. The ever-present (and decidedly boring) debate on e-books vs. printed books is another regular piece of the puzzle that is chewed up and regurgitated back to the masses as an extremely important part of the dilemma and shifting landscape in “publishing” (see * below).
Fine. We get it. The big guys wish more people would buy their products. We know. And they wish they could predict the future of how “new technologies” will impact how people buy their products. Again. We know. Isn’t that pretty much the history of all commercial interactions for the last, umm, several millennia?
What would be interesting would be to report on where there actually is thriving activity.*** Which comes back to Soth’s point. There is a real-life, thriving photography-book culture that is diverse, sustainable and extremely exciting (and which rarely gets reported).****
I echo Alec’s lament that a “purveyor of culture”, such as The New York Times, rarely covers any serious art or photography books, even in their Book Review supplement (though Richard Misrach got a shout-out in a holiday Coffee Table books of 2010 list for his “Destroy This Memory”. Of the few remaining fine-art photography magazines left—Aperture, Blind Spot, PDN, American Photo, 8 Magazine, Daylight, FOAM (who am I missing?)—most, but not all, feature 2-4 pages of book reviews, but rarely is the photographer-as-author truly delved into. (It’s also not their mission, as publications, to do so.) Round-ups of Best Books lists provide interesting commentary once a year, but even then, those lists get mixed in with things like “Bestselling Books” of the year lists, which only serve to emphasize what we already know: the public still likes horses, kittens, sunsets and celebrity.
The world of art magazines follows more or less the same pattern as photography magazines when it comes to books. There is the occasional review, but no one has really picked up the thread of the artist-as-author on any regular basis. Bookforum, the sister publication to Artforum, might seem like the logical place to read about art books, but it was conceived as the “literary supplement” to their older sibling and pays minimal attention to art books*****.
As I’ve said elsewhere, there is a whole new generation of photographers (and many non-photographic artists) who see the book as their primary expression. Not just as a container for artwork, but as the final piece itself. The book is the message and the vehicle at one and the same time.
Unfortunately, there is no printed publication that details the world of printed, published (and self-published) art and photography books. (But can’t you feel the need and desire for it building??)
Perhaps I’ve simply talked myself into the proverbial corner of wanting to receive a monthly or quarterly magazine that surveys the field of art and photography book publishing… Wait, I used to edit a magazine like that! (Perhaps I’m just feeling sentimental over the holidays….)******
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* This probably warrants a small discussion about what constitutes a “publishing company”. In the world of art and photobooks, which is what the NY Art Book Fair celebrates, a publishing company is any person or organization, no matter how small, that produces books. Printed Matter itself is a bastion of the small-press activities that are sprinkled across the continent. Little Brown Mushroom, as a publishing company, is essentially Alec, who is a full-time photographer, producing the occasional title of his own or someone else’s work, helped out by his one or two studio assistants (along with one or two interns at any given time).
** Soth is a sometime contributor to the Times’ online blog, The Opinionator.
*** This is another very sore point for me. There is a pathos of complaint, criticism and negativity that permeates our media culture. Wait, actually it permeates our entire social structure. It’s really not useful. In fact, it’s downright dangerous. The words we utter are expressions of the ideas that fill our minds (and often our hearts). To effect a change at the level of culture may sound impossible. But it isn’t. To acclaim, praise and search for the positive takes a bit more energy, and if anything, it just feels different than complaining, criticizing and being negative. Yet, it has wide-ranging effects in our world and social interactions.
**** And I’ve just co-authored a book about it called Publish Your Photography Book (with Mary Virginia Swanson, Princeton Architectural Press, Spring 2011).
***** I’ve written for Bookforum about photography books, including an interview with Stephen Shore and a review of The Theatre of the Face, by Max Kozloff.
****** First, let me say that I realize I’m complaining about a culture of complaining. But regular readers will also realize this is a rare semi-rant. I’m not even that mad! I should also make the point that the magazines listed above do spend time and devote pages to interviews with artists and photographers, for some of whom the book is key to their practice. I’m definitely not being critical of them. And secondly, can someone please show me a better way to use footnotes in a blog entry!?
Publish Your Photography Book, by Darius D. Himes & Mary Virginia Swanson
Princeton Architectural Press
ISBN 9781568988832
7 x 9 inches (17.8 x 22.9 cm), Paperback, 224 pages
25 color illustrations ; 50 b/w illustrations
Coming Soon (publication date 1/17/2011) Watch this blog for more info!
$29.95 £18.99
From the Princeton Architectural Press website:
We live in the golden age of the photography book. Since the early 1990s, the number of photography book publishers has continued to grow while technological developments have placed more tools for bookmaking directly in the hands of photographers. For the students and working artists who have chosen photography as their primary means of expression, having their own photography book is seen as a passport to the international photography scene. Yet, few have more than a tentative grasp of the component parts of a book, an understanding of what they want to express, or the know-how needed to get a book published. Publish Your Photography Book is the first book to demystify the process of producing and publishing a book of photographs. Industry insiders Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson survey the current landscape of photography book publishing and point out the many avenues to pursue and pitfalls to avoid. This expert guide is organized in six sections covering the rich history of the photo book; an overview of the publishing industry; an intimate look at the process of making a book; a close review of how to market a photo book; a section on case studies, built around discussions and interviews with published photographers; and a final section presenting a wealth of resources and information to aid in the understanding of the publishing world. Publish Your Photography Book also includes a number of additional interviews and contributions from industry professionals, including artists, publishers, designers, packagers, editors, and other industry experts who openly share their publishing experiences.
Darius Himes was a founding editor of photo-eye Booklist and is a cofounder of Radius Books, a nonprofit company publishing books on the visual arts. Himes is also a lecturer, consultant, and writer who has contributed to numerous publications.
Mary Virginia Swanson is a consultant in the area of licensing and marketing fine-art photography. Swanson frequently lectures and conducts workshops and educational programs for photographers and students.A respected judge of competitions and awards as well as portfolio reviewer, she is widely recognized for her blog Marketing Photos, a valued resource for photographers.
At the end of last year (2009) Miki Johnson and Andy Adams coordinated a “cross-blog” discussion about the future of photography books. Over forty bloggers participated with a range of amateur and professional voices piping in and adding their thoughts to the mix.
The interest in the subject of photobooks* has continued unabated and various fairs devoted to the Photobook are popping up around the world.** With the 3rd annual Photography Book Now contest deadline fast approaching (sponsored by Blurb and featuring a whopping $25,000 grand prize), a few of us that love photobooks thought we would initiate another online discussion about self-publishing—where we’ve come in the last few years in terms of perception, creativity and technology.
Please feel free to add your comments here or post in-depth thoughts on your own blog and send us the link.
—Darius Himes, Santa Fe, June 30, 2010
*I recently tried to order the Chinese edition of Robert Frank’s The Americans only to be told it’s not available in the U.S. Who knew (besides Martin Parr and the elves at Steidl) it would even be published in China?!
**The first annual Fotobuch Tage in Hamburg, Germany was well-attended and had, as part of the programming, a photobook dummy exhibition during which the public got to vote for their favorite not-yet-published photography book.
Words Without Pictures, edited by Alex Klein (Aperture, 2010)
Including an essay by Darius Himes (among numerous others)
ISBN 978-1597111423
6 x 8 inches, Softbound, 510 pages
Words Without Pictures was originally conceived by curator Charlotte Cotton as a means of creating spaces for discourse around current issues in photography. Every month for a year, beginning in November 2007, an artist, educator, critic or curator was invited to contribute a short unillustrated essay about an aspect of emerging photography. Each piece was available on the Words Without Pictures website for one month and was accompanied by a discussion forum focused on its specific topic. Over the course of its month-long “life,” each essay received both invited and unsolicited responses from a wide range of interested parties. All of these essays, responses and other provocations are gathered together here. Previously issued as a print-on-demand title, we are pleased to present Words Without Pictures to the trade for the first time as part of the Aperture Ideas series. The contributors are Amy Adler, George Baker, Christopher Bedford, Walead Beshty, Sarah Charlesworth, Charlotte Cotton, John Divola, Shannon Ebner, Jason Evans, Harrell Fletcher, Paul Graham, Leslie Hewitt, Darius Himes, Soo Kim, Sze Tsung Leong, Miranda Lichtenstein, Sharon Lockhart, Allan McCollum, Kevin Moore, Carter Mull, Marisa Olson, Arthur Ou, Anthony Pearson, Michael Queenland, Allen Ruppersberg, Alex Slade, A.L. Steiner, Penelope Umbrico, James Welling, Charlie White, Mark Wyse and Amir Zaki.
Excerpt from the essay “Who Cares About Books?” by Darius Himes
Short Track, by Jake Mendel (powerHouse Books, 2009)
Essay by Darius Himes
ISBN 978-1-57687-510-0
9.25 x 12.25 inches, Hardcover, 112 pages, 75 duotone illustrations
Excerpt from the essay “Dangerous Speed” by Darius Himes:
I first learned how to drive stick on the family riding lawnmower, of all things. It was an early-80s John Deere model that my father purchased with a healthy employee discount, and which came equipped with a clutch and 3-speed transmission. It wasn’t clear to me then how important knowledge of a manual transmission would be for my adult life. What was clear at the moment was that in the right patch of loose gravel in the alley separating our garage and the back 1/2 acre, you could actually make that thing peel out and leave a tiny puff of dust. The fact that it would assist in mowing the expansive lawn that my little brother and I were in charge of really only dawned on me later.
At top speed, the lawnmower could hit about 8 mph. This was a major disappointment for a 12 year old, to be sure. For years already I had been studying the various dune buggies and three wheelers available in the back of the oversize Montgomery Ward’s catalog that would arrive twice a year at our home in rural Iowa. I already knew, deep in my heart, that I wanted a motorized vehicle with potential for excessive speed. The lawnmower was definitely not it. But it was a step in the right direction.
My first conscious awakening to the thrill and allure of dangerous speed came years earlier while perched on the middle hump of the back bench seat of my father’s 1966 Ford Mustang. My dad, in truth, is no “car guy” but on open stretches of country road, where visibility is high and your foot is connected to the gas pedal of a hunk of barely-sweating-at-60-mph American steel and ingenuity, what guy (or gal) doesn’t become a “car guy”?
What would happen if the printed book had just been invented in a high-tech world in which people had never done their reading from anything but computer screens? The unquestionable advantages of the computer would not be threatened by this new product but the people, who so love to compare apples with pears, would be quite bowled over by this ultra-modern invention: after years spent chained to the screen they would suddenly have something they could open like a window or a door – a machine you can physically enter! For the first time knowledge would be combined with a sense of touch and gravity – this new invention allows you to experience the most incredible sensations, reading becomes a physical experience. And after experiencing knowledge only as a bundle of connections, as a system of interacting networks, suddenly here is individuality: every book is an independent personality, which cannot be taken apart or added to at will. And how relaxing these new reading appliances are, their operating systems never needs updating – the only thing that changes over the course of time is the message that they contain, which is always open to new interpretations.
—By Juan Villoro, in an article in last month’s adn CULTURA (an Argentinian culture magazine) about the “future of books.”
[kindly pointed about by reader David Christensen, and translated via SignandSight.com].
Photography: A Very Short Introduction
Words Without Pictures (Aperture, 2010)
Short Track, by Jake Mendel
Bird Watching, by Paula McCartney