BOOOOOOOOK of BOOOOOOOOOKS

Roth, A. (Ed.) (2001). The Book of 101 Books: Seminal Photographic Books of the Twentieth Century. New York: PPP Editions in association with Roth Horowitz LLC.

Looking through this book it quickly becomes clear that most photographers favour a simple layout of one image per page. This makes a lot of sense since these are photos and the bigger is often the better way to view a photograph.

Any how, most of the layouts I've picked to look at here are not like that. 

Allen Ginsberg, Allen Ginsbeg Photographs

(California): twelvetrees Press, 1990.

Folio; gravure plates; gray cloth, printed dust jacket.

5,000 copies, the entire edition.

It's probably not hard to guess that part of the reason that I chose this book is because of the handwriting under the image. Plus, it's by a famous beat poet, how could I not? These are snapshots, really, but they are interesting for a number of reasons. One is that Ginsberg and his friends are well known, made more interesting by the fact that their fame is past. Besides which, the snapshot aesthetic is kind of in right now, with lomo and disposable cameras coming into vogue in a big way. I hate saying coming into vogue, it makes me feel gross.

The captions are retyped at the end of the book for clarity and most of the subjects have a bibliography back there. It makes this an interesting artefact (is that the right word) of the beat poets.

Dorothea Lange and Paul Schuster Taylor, An American Exodus; A Record of Human Erosion.

New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, (1939).

4to.; black-and-white photographs; blue cloth; photographically illustrated dust jacket.

This is a really nice resolution for the inner cover (is that what it's called?), as an alternative to some wallpaper-esque pattern.

Edward Weston, Fifty Photographs

Merle Armitage, Donald Bear, Robinson Jeffers, Edward Weston.

New York: Duell Sloan & Pearce Publishers, (1947).

4to.; black-and-white photographs; printed black paper-covered boards; printed dust jacket.

1,500 copies, numbered and initialed by Weston, the entire edition.

I'm not going to go into detail here. I like how big the  page/photo number is so big.

Paul Strand and Claude Roy, La France de Profil

Lausanne: La Guild du Livre (1952)

4to.; gravure plates; gatefold; photographic wrappers; glassine dust jacket.

10,399 copies, the entire edition.

"the portrait in photographs and words of a small town and it's inhabitants"

Yup, I put this on for the handwriting.

Frederick Sommer, Frederick Sommer 1939-1962 Photographs; Words not spent today Buy smaller images tomorrow.

(New York): Aperture 10:4, 1962

8vo.; black-and-white photographs; printed wrappers, stapled.

I really like: 

Words not spent today

Buy smaller images tomorrow

I actually scanned this one in because of the way these disparate images fit together so cohesively. Maybe it's the beak/muzzle/nose and the states of decay.

Kikuji Kawada, The Map

Tokyo: Bijustu Shuppan-Sha, August 6, 1965.

8vo.; gravure plates; gate folds, folded broadside laid in, recto printed in Japanese, verso printed in English; black paper-covered boards; black-and-white photographically illustrated dust jacket; bilingual captions printed in white on the verso; stiff black paper die-cut chemise, photographically and textually illustrated on recto and verso; photographically illustrated cardboard slipcase.
700 copies, the entire edition.

You just know I included this for the slipcase. The picture below was just as proof that stuff went inside it.

Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol's Index (Book)

with the assistance of Stephen Shore, Paul Morrissey, Ondine, Nico, Christopher Cerf, Alan Rinzler, Gerald Harrison, Akihito Shirakawa, and particularly David Paul.

Several photographs by Nat Finkelstein. Factory Fotos by Billy Name.

New York: Random House, A Black Star Book, 1967

4to.; black-and-white photographs, full-colour pop-ups and fold-outs, and items affixed to bound in leaves, including a flexible LP and a printed "index" balloon; balloon slightly melter, partially sealing together facing pages, as usual; photographic endpagers; white laminated boards; 3-D photographic illustration affixed to upper panel; issued in a sealed plastic bag.

phew. Awesome.

As you may have guessed I included this book for that accordion pop-out bit. 

Jim Goldber, Rich and Poor

New York: Random House (1985)

4to.; black-and-white photographs; photographically illustrated wrappers.

These are photographs of people in their homes combines with their handwritten statements. 

"The style and method of abbreviated writings dictated that they [the subjects] had to respond in a certain way. We all say things that would sound frightfully honest if condensed and frozen within the context of a still image." Goldberg