Ilulissat Icefjord 5, 07/2003, 69°11’59’’ N, 51°08’08’’ W (from “Broken Line”)
© Olaf Otto Becker

I had picked up Olaf Otto Becker’s book Broken Line some time ago and, though I was intrigued with the project – Becker’s inspiration to photograph the Greenlandic coastline – I wasn’t able to spend much time with the images. Well, recently I had a chance to sit down with the book for a while and found the photographs to be very compelling.

More of Becker’s work can be seen on his website and, if you’re interested, a copy of Broken Line can be purchased here. Definitely look at the book if you can.

Popularity: 21% [?]

Ilulissat, Greenland, 2008
© Joel Tettamanti

I recently came across some great landscape work by Joel Tettamanti. His book, entitled Local Studies, features photographs from various regions across the globe. I was particularly drawn to the set of photographs from Ilulissat, Greenland.

You can see more work on his website and purchase a copy of the book here.

Popularity: 27% [?]

At the New York Photo Festival’s “Curating 2.0” panel, Tim Barber (photographer and curator behind the popular online photography gallery/archive known as Tiny Vices) mentioned that he was working on a series of books with photographers. That same week, I payed a visit to Michael Schmelling’s studio to check out his mock up for The Plan and Michael mentioned he had a book in the works for Tim.

Well, Tim just announced the launch of his new publishing house, TV Books, which includes Michael’s book, The Week of No Computer, as well as a selection of others. The current catalog features 12 titles and a gallery (featuring editioned prints and original works by TV Books’ artists), with many more books, posters and other projects on the way.

According to Tim, the following titles will be available soon:

Hope Against Reason by Brad Phillips
Don’t Look Down by Ben Shumacher
Everyday Demons by Vincent Dermody
Lookers by Eleonore Hendricks
Jesus Book by Peter Sutherland
Purpleviolet14 by Julia Burlingham
Hungry! Horny! Sleepy! by Jason Nocito

Take a look at the current catalog here. Keep up the great work, Tim! I’m looking forward to what’s to come.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Thanks to Adam B. Bell, I discovered the work of Leigh Ledare, a recent graduate of Columbia’s MFA program. Ledare’s project Pretend You’re Actually Alive is an intimate portrait of his mother, a once-promising prodigy ballerina, and an exploration of his relationship with her.

Currently, Pretend You’re Actually Alive is on view at Andrew Roth in New York, up until June 14th. As the press release states,

Pretend You’re Actually Alive can be viewed as an archive of a mother and son’s shared, private moments amidst the desperate attempts to renew her identity as a dancer – this ­time working as a stripper in a club beside her parents’ apartment. Pretend You’re Actually Alive is also a mapping of Ledare’s mother’s efforts to commodify herself – initially through her precocious childhood talent, later through her overt sexuality, and eventually through the portrayal of herself as an archetypal victim – in efforts to find companionship, attention, financial security, and a benefactor before her youthful, marketable currencies expire.

Ledare’s photographs and videos bring to mind the work of Larry Clark, Nan Goldin and Richard Billingham. The work is both haunting and beautiful.

Mother in New Home, 2006
© Leigh Ledare

Mother As Baby Jane, 2004
© Leigh Ledare

Pink Stain, 2007
© Leigh Ledare

Black Wig (Mom in New Home), 2006
© Leigh Ledare

The book of Pretend You’re Actually Alive, which is now available signed through Dashwood, comes in a slipcased edition of 1,000. If I had the money, I’d buy one.

See more of Ledare’s work here, here or here.

Popularity: 43% [?]

Steidl is yet to reveal a third incarnation of Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Missisippi and the potential designs (above) look very promising.

While I never got my hands on the first edition – a huge mistake for the “book collector” in me as a signed copy is now selling for $1,500 – I do have a signed copy of the second edition on my shelf but have always been unimpressed with the feel of the book compared to the previous edition, in part because I’m a lover of cloth covers. This new edition, however, seems to have it all.

If you’re interested, you can pre-order a copy for yourself here or get it directly through Steidl. I believe it’s set to arrive in June.

Popularity: 35% [?]

After the long and tedious making of Sound Affects, Christian Patterson gives us a preview of how his book looks in the end. Love the music choice.

I spoke with Christian on the phone the other day and he said that there are about 7 copies in the U.S. right now, but that’ll change very soon as Dashwood will be selling and distributing the book in early May. Otherwise, it is available through Schaden.

Popularity: 24% [?]

I first saw Patrick Romero’s work on his Flickr and have watched it grow over the past year or so. Last week, Patrick was kind enough to surprise me with a copy of his new book of photographs entitled 28 Famous Views of Los Angeles. The only thing I love more than getting mail is getting books as gifts in the mail.

Over the past month or so I’ve received a lot of these self-published books and have really enjoyed looking at the ways that photographers choose to assemble their work into book form, something that I consider an autonomous art in itself. Patrick’s book is a great example of what can be done with this inexpensive print-on-demand technology, how a very simple design and a well-considered sequence of photographs can come together to great effect.

Thanks again, Patrick.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Not too long ago, I received a package in the mail from Alexander Martinez containing his new zine, Kids Stay Free. The book is 40 pages long and contains 51 black and white photos. As far as I can tell, the work in the book is primarily pulled from his project White Magic.

Nice little gift. Thanks, Alexander!

Those of you interested in a copy of his zine, pick one up here for just $6.

Popularity: 31% [?]

My good friend Christian Patterson has a book coming out of photographs from his Sound Affects project, the release coinciding with his upcoming exhibition at Kaune, Sudendorf in Cologne, Germany. The gallery is publishing the first edition of 700 copies of the book.

Over the last few months, I’ve been fortunate enough to have peeks at the tentative layout/sequence and give Christian my thoughts on the accompanying text. I’m very happy for him that it has all come together and am looking forward to seeing the final version whenever he sends me a copy (wink).

The introduction, titled “Fuck You Memphis!” by Robert Gordon, couldn’t be more appropriate. There is also a nice essay, contextualizing Christian’s work titled “A Concrete Kind of Fiction” by Susanna Ott. As for the specs, the book will be hardcover, 9×12 in., 110 pages with 47 color plates. There will be a special edition limited to 60 copies: white book with blue slipcase, numbered and signed along with a signed 8×10 in. print.

If you’re traveling through or living in Germany, know that Sound Affects will be on display at Kaune, Sudendorf from April 19th to May 25th, 2008. The opening reception and book release will be held on April 18th.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Recently, I posted about the Sweedish publisher Farewell Books and their latest publication entitled Making a Map, a selection of photographs by Japanese photographer Wakaba Noda. Mårten Lange, Farewell’s founder and editor, was kind enough send me a copy to take a closer look at.

When I first opened Making a Map, I immediately thought of all of the self-published books that I’ve been seeing lately, books made using online custom printing services such as Lulu or Blurb. While printing this way may never compare to the precision and image quality of Steidl’s publications, I’ve been really quite impressed with a number of them. The exciting part of this technology being so accessible (and so affordable) now is that anyone with a book idea and basic design skills can produce a quality publication. This is a large part of Lange’s inspiration when he started Farewell in 2007.

Inspired by a digital do-it-yourself spirit, Farewell was created as a way of bypassing the barrier of exclusiveness that often surrounds photo book publishing. By printing small editions and using the Internet as the primary distribution channel, a Farewell book is both accessible and exclusive at the same time.

Farewell began with two books from Lange himself, Woodland and Machina, followed by John Divola’s As Far As I Could Get and Late Winter Early Spring by Magnus Gyllensten. Wakaba Noda’s Making a Map is the most recent book, Farewell’s fifth publication.

The book itself is relatively small (approximately 16×21.3cm, 8.4×6.3in), softcover and perfect bound. It contains 32 pages, featuring 28 offset printed full color images and no accompanying text. Without a description of the project, Noda’s photographs feel very much open to interpretation. That said, there seems to be great care taken in the sequencing (and pairing) of the images.

spread from Making a Map, 2008
© Wakaba Noda / Farewell Books

spread from Making a Map, 2008
© Wakaba Noda / Farewell Books

spread from Making a Map, 2008
© Wakaba Noda / Farewell Books

The simplicity of design and lack of text is fitting for this work. I found myself easily entering Noda’s world: a majestic scene of grazing horses in the grass, a curious pattern found in the netting at what might be a baseball field or a driving range, a small glimpse of a rainbow at sunset.

The subtle tonality of the photographs is consistent and makes moving from one image to another a pleasure. The format of the images, what seems to be a slightly elongated frame, somewhere in between the ratio of 35mm and a standard panoramic, is also nice. The photographs sometimes appear to be distant in location but are always close in feeling; with Making a Map, Noda weaves together small wonders that feel somehow insignificant and somehow profound and in doing so “makes a map of a world not defined by geography, but by the possibilities that photography offers.”

If expensive printing is not the most important thing to you in a photo book, I highly recommend this collection of quietly considered photographs.

Visit Farewell Books to purchase a copy.

Popularity: 25% [?]