Tell Us Your Favorite Photography Book and Win a T-Shirt

Posted on April 15, '13

 We'd like to know about the best photography book you've read.  Tell us your favorite in the comment section below and you'll have a chance at winning one of our three newest t-shirts.  Leave a comment on our Facebook page for an additional chance of winning.  We will randomly select three winners this Friday April 19th and announce them here as well as on Facebook.

Just to kick things off, we've taken some of our favorite photography books off the shelf to share with you.  We couldn't choose just one, so we're giving you eight.  John Szarkowski leads with two classics, Atget and Looking at Photographs. Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz show us how they made some of their most memorable images in At Work and Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs. When we're feeling intellectual, we've got Camera Lucida, On Photography and Light Readings by Barthes, Sontag and Coleman. And when we're feeling most American and want to reconfirm the lasting power of photographs as social documentary, we turn to Walker Evans' American Photographs.

What is the photography book you turn to?


Two Ends of the Spectrum at the AIPAD Photography Show

Posted on April 08, '13

The annual AIPAD Photography Show is one of the things that makes New York great.  Held this past weekend at the beautiful Park Avenue Armory (built in 1861 by the first volunteer militia to respond to Lincoln's call for troops), it drew close to a hundred photography dealers from around the world.  The entire gamut of important photography was on display and for sale - from 19th century salt and albumen prints all the way through to the present.  We saw more than a few items we liked, but here are two that show the range of photography available at the show.

Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs had this striking 1860's French hand-colored albumen print on display.  It is a portrait of a peasant and is a wonderful example of how photography during this period often served as the basis for hand-colored images.  A photograph of this type and quality is singularly rare and valuable.  Price: USD 45,000.


At the other end of the spectrum were a series of portraits by Ayano Sudo from Japan.  Ayano and her boyfriend photograph each other in various guises, playing with appearance and gender.  In one portrait, Ayano's boyfriend is a hairy-armed espresso drinking Geisha, in another he is a handsome 1930's movie matinee idol.  Ayano appears variously as a glamorous Marilyn Monroe lookalike, Little Red Riding Hood and a studious young man.  Her photographs are printed very finely on watercolor paper with small diamond appliques adding a bit of sparkle.  Her photographs can be purchased from Picture Photo Space in Osaka, Japan.


The Evolution TLR Serigraph

Posted on January 31, '13

We have just released the Evolution TLR serigraphs and thought you’d like to know what went into the making of these beautiful prints.  

 
First, a serigraph is a screen-print print made by the silkscreen process.  A screen works much like a stencil, with ink being pushed through it and onto paper.  Parts of the screen are blocked out creating blank or negative space on the paper. Meanwhile, the ink passes through the porous parts and onto the paper beneath, creating an image.  A different screen is required for each color being printed.  The Evolution TLR serigraphs are three-color prints.
 
The concept for the Evolution TLR serigraph came from our desire to document the history of these cameras, the high-points and evolution over time.  It was no easy task narrowing our list down to the fifteen best.  
 
Each camera was then hand drawn. The illustrations were subjected to an iterative review process to make sure they were accurate down to the smallest details.  One of the great things about this serigraph is that it invites you to look closely at each camera.  From a distance, the similarity in the architecture of the cameras dominates the eye.  Move a little closer though, and a new, more interesting perspective emerges.
 
Once all the artwork and the composition was complete, our printers - Kayrock Screenprinting - in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn took over.  We chose to work with high quality Coventry Rag paper.  This paper has been manufactured in the U.S. since 1971 and is particularly well suited for screen-printing.   Since we chose to offer the serigraphs in silver and red editions, the originally white paper had to be ‘flooded’ in those colors.  The background ink for the silver print was mixed with aluminum paste to give it a gorgeous metallic quality.  During ‘flooding’, the paper will shrink or expand.  However, once the ink dries, the size of the paper is locked in and it is ready for printing. 
 
The craft of printmaking has almost everything to do with making sure the ink goes where it’s needed. First, the press is cleaned, calibrated and adjusted to make sure the blades that spread the ink over the screen are running smoothly and consistently.  The screen is registered (aligned exactly) in the press and printing begins, with each sheet of paper placed by hand into the presss.  First the paper was flooded. Next, the typography was printed (to make the white typography 'pop', we gave it two coats of white ink.  Finally, the cameras were printed.
In between each color, the prints were laid to rest on a drying rack.  These serigraphs are three-color, meaning they were in and out of the press three times with long periods of drying in between.  
When all the printing was completed, the prints were trimmed using a heavy-duty late 19th-century paper trimmer.  
As a final step, we blind stamped each print with a custom Dodge & Burn seal.  
 
 
The finished serigraphs came out beautifully, even better than expected. We're having a hard time deciding which is our favorite, red or silver. Which is why we sincerely recommend people buy both editions!