Top Photo Books ‘09
- Another great year in photography books. Here are my favorites:
1.) Henry Roy – Spirit (Gottlund Verlag)
- Henry Roy’s Spirit was my biggest surprise of the year. I had never even heard of him before Gottlund Verlag announced their fall releases and when I got the book in the mail I was absolutely blown away. Page by page it is just one beautiful photo after another and then ends with six pieces of Roy’s wonderful writing. This is by far my favorite Gottlund Verlag release and I think the nicest looking book they have put out so far.
2.) Richard Renaldi – Fall River Boys (Charles Lane Press)
- Fall River Boys was the first release from Richard Renaldi’s new publishing company Charles Lane Press that he founded with his partner Seth Boyd. This book lived up to the all hype it was receiving upon its release. Of course Richard’s photographs are as beautiful as ever but the book is truly breathtaking, the paper, the printing, etc. and the care that was put into it is more than apparent.
3.) Mark Steinmetz – Greater Atlanta (Nazareli)
- Mark Steinmetz is one of my favorite photographers, he made me fall in love with black and white photography all over again when I first discovered his work. Greater Atlanta is his newest book focusing on the South after releasing South Central and South East and is just as great as its predececors.
4.) Rob Hornstra & Arnold van Bruggen – Sanatorium (Self)
- Sanatorium is the first publication from Rob Hornstra and Arnold van Bruggen’s Sochi Project where they are documenting the change in Sochi, Russia before the the 2014 Olympic Games are held there. The book focuses on the sanatoria where workers were sent to “revive their spirits and strengthen their bodies” during the Soviet era. Hornstra’s new images are great and if you liked 101 Billionaires you will love Sanatorium.
5.) Robert Bergman – Selected Portraits (PS1)
- Robert Bergman had his coming out party this year with three huge exhibitions held at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, The National Gallery of Art and Yossi Milo Gallery. This book is the catalogue for Bergman’s show at PS1 and it is a treasure. I like the design of this catalogue much more than Bergman’s first book A Kind of Rapture which was released in 1998 and contains a lot of the same images. Other than the photos the essay by David Levi Strauss is a really good read. If you haven’t had a chance to see Bergman’s photos in person do so quick before the shows come down.
6.) Timothy Briner – Boonville (Self)
- I was really excited when I got an email from Tim Briner saying that he was making a small number of of books of his Boonville series to help fund the framing for his upcoming solo show at Daniel Cooney Fine Arts. The books are all hand made by Tim and show what he considers the final edit of the project which examines the current state of America by exploring six towns with the same name spread across the country. I’m pretty sure another small edition of the books will be available through the gallery during the show that will be opening on January 7th.
7.) Mitch Epstein – American Power (Steidl)
- What can I say about Mitch Epstein? Another monster release from one of the most important photographers out there today. American Power is very close to sneaking by Family Business as my favorite Epstein series.
8.) Eirik Johnson – Sawdust Mountain (Aperture)
- Eirik Johnson’s Sawdust Mountain was my favorite of this years releases by the always great Aperture Foundation. The book has everything you could hope for in a great photography book, beautiful images, great subject matter and a good design.
9.) Nicolai Howalt & Trine Søndergaard – Tree Zone (Hassla)
- When Nicolai Howalt and Trine Søndergaard get together they are unstoppable. Their first series How to Hunt had some really incredible images in it but they stopped me in my tracks with Tree Zone. The pictures are so subtle in their beauty, each page looking very similar to the one before it but the series shines because of this. Hassla put out some seriously great titles this year.
10.) Grace Kim – Love Hotel (Self)
- While I was at Melanie Flood’s place to see the Grace Kim show she had up at the time she showed me this tiny little book that Grace made in an edition of 100 for her series Love Hotel. I’ve never seen another book like this before, it is literally only 4 5/8 x 3 6/8″, the photographs each slide out of the pockets of the book and are archival pigment prints, printed on hahnemuhle fine art baryta paper. It is a true beauty and if you can get your hands on a copy I couldn’t suggest it enough.
Honorable Mentions:
- Takashi Homma – First Jay Comes (Hassla)
- Ryan McGinley – Moonmilk (Mörel)
- Eric Marth – Various Zines (Self & Medium Rare)
- Tuukka Kaila – Based On Truth (Self)
- Morad Bouchakour – s/t (d’jonge Hond)
Larry Sultan RIP
© Larry Sultan
- Just heard the news that photographer Larry Sultan died yesterday. His influence on contemporary photography is undeniable, his collaborative project with Mike Mandel Evidence and his work about his parents Pictures From Home are two of my favorites. I’m in the middle of applying to schools and was really hoping to get to work with Larry at California College of Arts. Truly sad. NY Times article here.
Prints! Prints! Prints!
- With the holiday season in full swing there are a bunch of different places to buy affordable prints and who wouldn’t want a beautiful photograph?
© Dalton Rooney
- collect.give is a new place to collect photography and also donate to a worthy cause, as all of the photographers have pledged to give 100% of the profits to a worthwhile cause they support. Find great editions from Emily Shur, John Loomis, Susana Raab, Dalton Rooney, Kevin J. Miyazaki and Allison V. Smith.
© Ron Jude
- It is also the time of the year for Blind Spot’s Annual Benefit Auction. I can’t believe the amount of great work in the auction, if only I was rich and could buy the Taj Forer, Ron Jude, David La Spina, Bradley Peters, and Michael Schmelling prints, now that would make a happy Christmas morning. See the rest of the participating photographers here.
© Mike Sinclair
- 20×200 has a number of new editions available and are also having some holiday sales so be sure to check the site often.
© Ben Alper
- There are also a few personal sales going on including my own. The Exposure Project’s Ben Alper is having a print sale on his newly designed site and Brandon Hale Holmes is also having a sale of any of the work on his site, I just recieved a gorgeous 16×20 of an image from his series 97 Days in Egypt in the mail today!
Picture Black Friday
Every year, Black Friday rings in the yearly holiday shopping season, with hundreds of thousands of people getting up before sunrise to queue for bargains and deals; when the doors are unlocked, the stores being besieged by their own customers. During Black Friday last year, security guard Jdimytai Damour, was trampled to death by crazed shoppers as he tried to hold back bargain seekers at a Long Island Walmart. Unfortunately, the uproar in the media was mostly over by the end of the weekend.
Picture Black Friday is a photojournalism project that aims to revisit and analyze a combination of forces- a worsening economy, financial desperation, excitement, fear, absurdity, and a distinctly American cultural tradition- that culminate the morning after Thanksgiving.
More specifically, Picture Black Friday is an open call for photographers throughout the U.S. to go out and produce images that document Black Friday- how you see it, on your terms. Imagine this project as an open assignment: you have freedom to approach this event from any angle you wish, returning with single images or even a mini-project that documents Black Friday like no other media outlet will. A selection of these images will be exhibited on the site.
New Interview
© Corey Presha
- Photographer Liz Kuball was kind enough to interview me for her blog recently through an email exchange. Please take a look here. Thanks Liz!
Mike Slack Book Signing at Dashwood
Mike Slack’s Pyramids builds on the striking Polaroid aesthetic of his previous books, Ok Ok Ok (2002) and Scorpio (2006), rounding out a trilogy of stand-alone volumes that together contain 123 pictures from the small Los Angeles based publisher The Ice Plant. This collection records everyday details of what could be a recent past or a very near future – a dust storm in the desert, simple geometry, stairways and windows, schoolchildren on a field trip-quietly dramatic scenes energized by a sense of anticipation rather than nostalgia. Presented as physical artifacts of fictitious events to be deciphered by the viewer, the pictures also document the travels, observations and graphic fixations of the photographer, centering on a set of three identical early-70’s office buildings (in Slack’s hometown of Indianapolis), from which the book takes its title.
Liz Kuball
- I’ve been corresponding with photographer Liz Kuball through emails for the last couple of days since she bought one of my photos through my print sale and thought I’d share some images from her wonderful series California Vernacular. Liz also has two 20×200 editions that are still available, take a look here.
When you move to California from back east, you come for a reason: Your leaving behind a bad relationship, or escaping your hometown, or thinking you’ll be a star. And what you find when you get here is that things aren’t what you thought they’d be. Theres some of what you expected – sunshine and palm trees and long, wide beaches. But theres more: house with cacti and succulents inplace of the green lawns you grew up with; women in bikinis climbing ladders; trees groomed in an archway, the expected path between them blocked by a gateless chainlink-fence. You answer an ad on craigslist for a used car and find yourself in a boxed-in car lot in Van Nuys and go for pie at Du-par’s afterward, because pie makes sense when your on Venturea Boulevard and its 95 degrees and the car wasn’t what the ad said it would be. And you’d think, after all this, you’d become disillusioned and go back home, and some do, of course, but many of us stay and instead of growing bitter, we hang on – hang on to a world, that to us, is even more fantastic than the one we though we’d find, because its real in its absurdity and because we have stories to tell.
© Liz Kuball
See more work here.
Erica Allen at Melanie Flood Projects (Update)
© Erica Allen
- Melanie Flood emailed again today to let me know that the Erica Allen show for her series Untitled Gentelmen is back on and will be opening this Wednesday Nov. 11 from 6 to 9pm (RSVP required). In her email she also let everyone know the sad news that this will be the last show at her great space in Brooklyn. Over the past year Melanie has put on three of my favorite shows (Bradley Peters, Mikael Kennedy, and Grace Kim) and by letting people into her own home created an amazing space for talented emerging artists to show their work. I was actually a little heart broken when she told me the news the last time I was at her place. But she did promise new projects coming up in the near future, one of which she told me about and I am very excited for! So make it out for what promises to be a great night of photography.
Untitled Gentelmen is a series of fictional portraits created using discarded studio photographs and anonymous faces from contemporary barbershop hairstyle posters. Existing between the real and the artificial, these composite images aim to investigate the assumptions and projected meanings with which viewers read images.
Print Sale!
- To help fund the production of new work and other upcoming projects I am offering four limited edition prints through my new website. Just go to the image on my site and click the price to pay using paypal. Please take a look and repost if you can. Thanks!
www.coreypresha.net
Dog and Bus, Blackshear, Georgia, 2008
from Simple Comforts
Archival Inkjet Print
11 x 14 in. / 27.9 x 35.6 cm
Edition of 15, Signed and numbered
$55 ppd
Ron, Navajo, Arizona, 2008
from The Road is Life
Archival Inkjet Print
11 x 14 in. / 27.9 x 35.6 cm
Edition of 15, Signed and numbered
$55 ppd
Untitled (California Landscape #3), 2008
from Observations I
Archival Inkjet Print
16 x 20 in. / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
Edition of 10, Signed and numbered
$85 ppd
Untitled (Grand Canyon #4), 2008
from Observations I
Archival Inkjet Print
16 x 20 in. / 40.6 x 50.8 cm
Edition of 10, Signed and numbered
$85 ppd
All Images © Corey Presha
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