The Future of Photography Books: Printing Photographers’ Legacies

In many things, what used to be is no more. This is true in the state of published photography monographs. We used to gauge a photographer's worth by their printed output. Those wonderful photographic monographs. Robert Frank's The Americans. Stephen Shore's American Surfaces. William Eggleston's Guide (which is actually by John Szarkowski.) That model has...

Frank’s Photo Books Are a Great Idea and a Tremendous Way to Share Our Work

A photographer I follow who posts online, Frank Solle, offered to send me a copy of his latest book, Travels in Utah. It's a booklet you might say, it's only 32 pages, and I said yes, of course. I'm always interested in what other photographers are doing. His book came in the mail and I...

Seeking a Publisher for my 1st Monograph–a Book of American Street Photographs

Every aspect of life is a journey. Growing up, surviving long hot summer vacations as a kid, getting to graduate from school, moving out, starting in the workforce. We all are a work in progress making progress. For me, I've worked as a photojournalist and commercial photographer my whole life. I have quite a body...

A Photographer’s View of Self

I was recently gifted a book of self-portraits, all made with Leica cameras called Leica Myself. It's comprised of a single self-portrait from dozens of Leica photographers from all around the world. Which got me thinking about self-portraits and what it is we do when we make pictures. Really all photos we make are self-portraits....

For Longevity: Share Your Photos Wide, In Many Places Among Many People

If you want your photography to last for generations to come, there's only one sure way. Well, two. Publish a book and get famous with your museum exhibits. Recommended but not easily achievable. Print your photographs and gift them to as many people as you can, in locations across the globe. More doable. The idea...

We Need To Print Our Photos So We Have Something To Write On

I'm a fan of Duane Michals and how he creates art by conceiving of a photograph, then writing on it to give it more depth. To change its meaning into a story he created. Like this one, titled, "This Is My Proof". The subject of the photo is the photographer's sister and her husband, just...

Robert Adams Doesn’t Make Calendar Photographs

Robert Adams is a Colorado photographer best known for his work as part of the New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape which was an International Museum of Photography (which is located at the George Eastman House) exhibit in the mid-1970s. I just watched a terrific discussion on how Adams' landscapes differ from calendar photographs,...

My 2020 Homage to Henri Cartier-Bresson

Here's my take on life on the bank of a lake, 2020 style, with a nod to Henri Cartier-Bresson and his famous riverside picnic. I actually was thinking about Bresson when I was making this photograph. Kenneth Wajda's Dimanche au bord du lac Macintosh [Sunday on the banks of Lake Macintosh], Colorado USA, 2020 Henri...

The Hard Work of Publishing Four Photo Books: Follow-up

A short while ago, I published this post: Publishing Four Very Important Photo Books in 2019 Since then, I've completed three of the books (one person couldn't get it together) and they're on their way. In the process, here's what I learned. 1. People don't know where their photos are. 2. They don't know how to...

Photographing the Apocolypse

Maybe that's what I'm doing.  You never know.  Fred McDarrah was documenting Greenwich Village in the 1960s and didn't know he was in the middle of the many revolutions that were to come--1950s to 1960s, beat generation to Vietnam war generation, folk music to punk rock--he saw it all and photographed it. I'm reading his...