Luke Rhodes
2920294
The Photobook: The Then, the Now and the Future.
Books have been in use in human society for thousands of years. Through this time
they have been developed in many ways to further enhance their ability to store and
communicate information in an effective manner. However, it is only recently, over the past
century or so, that books have been used by artists, particularly photographers, to
effectively show their work to a wider audience. This essay will begin to research the history
of the photobook and outline its development over time, from the inception of the first
image based book through to the modern day. On top of this it will also explore the
techniques and practices used by artists and photographers that allow them to turn the
basic codex in to a piece of art itself, questioning the use of the book in contemporary times
compared to traditional examples. As well as examining the photobook’s already well
established history, this writing will analyse the effect the book has on society and art
movements themselves with an exploration in to the effects of technology on the book and
their physical structure. As a final outcome the following piece shall investigate the direction
in which both recent technology and contemporary art movements are beginning to travel
in, looking at digital publication and its effects on the role of the author, the reader and the
books themselves.
Photobooks have been used for a multitude of purposes over time, from their
conception right the way through to the present day, but every book created has a common
similarity in that they all contain a theme. While this theme may not be strictly obvious at
the first opening of a page, the idea that the creator of the book is trying to portray will be
clear. This notion is apparent even in the very beginnings of the creation of the photobook,
a time which Martin Parr and Gerry Badger point out to be in the early nineteenth century,
as ‘In March 1839 William Henry Fox Talbot...suggested to his friend, the botanist William
Jackson Hooker, that they collaborate on a book about British plants.’ (2004, p. 13). The
result was The Pencil In Nature (Talbot, 1844), a series of instalments that contained a mix
of text and corresponding calotype images that documented various subjects. The calotype,
a process of Talbot’s own invention, used silver iodide coated paper that reacted with light
to form a negative of the chosen subject. Even though the calotype was far less popular
than the daguerreotype due to the length of time taken to process the images, the process
created negatives of the desired image that could then be printed on to silver chloride paper
to produce a complete positive image. With the daguerreotype only able to produce a single
image from one exposure, Talbot had unlocked the possibility of reproducing exact
multiples of a single photograph, thus, the unlocking of the reproducibility of a publication.
The photobook was born.
Talbot, W.H.F. (1844) The Pencil In Nature. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
As photography was explored more and more as a medium to document the
photographer’s surroundings of choice, it became apparent that the early stages of the
photobooks were being used as a replacement to an observer’s sketchbooks. As Parr and
Badger go on to explain, ‘The photobook has been a fundamental means of expression and
dissemination for photographers since the earliest practitioners pasted their images into
albums resembling those they would once have filled with sketches. Indeed, nineteenthcentury photography was basically book related.’ (2004, p. 9). At the early stages of
photography, it was much more common place to find a piece of work printed in a book
format rather than hanging on a gallery wall, even regarding modern photography Parr and
Badger argue that ‘...photography remains essentially a printed-page medium.’ (2004, p. 9).
Even though the method created by Talbot for The Pencil In Nature was greatly
appreciated as a step towards mass publication of the photobook, the productions
amateurish nature, and lack of artistic merit in its photographs, caused a general sense of
underwhelming where aesthetics were concerned. In 1947, with a waning popularity
towards its publications, the factory that produced Talbot’s calotype publications closed
down, but not before producing several other works of a similar nature. One of the most
notable of these was Sun Pictures in Scotland (Talbot, 1845), considered to be the first
“themed” book, it is recognised as an important step in the path of the progression of the
photobook. This importance is reflected in the recent sale of an original calotype print of the
publication, having been sold for $62,500 in 2009 to The Miller Plummer Collection of
Photographs, the 7th highest price the organisation has paid for a single publication at
Christie’s. (Christie’s, 2011). As the decline of Talbot’s calotype process increased, so too did
the desire for a more aesthetically pleasing form of the photobook, similar in style to the
individual images that the French were already producing.
Talbot, W.H.F. (1845) Sun Pictures in Scotland. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
With the French progressions in photographic technology, it wasn’t long before
Talbot’s methods of reproducing a single image multiple times were eclipsed by the
continental Europeans. Louis-Désiré Blanquart-Evrard was one of the first of the French to
improve on Talbot’s calotype design, opening his Lille based Imprimerie Photographique, a
photographic printing factory, in 1851, which offered a service to ‘artists and amateurs the
productions, in unlimited numbers, of positive prints from glass or paper negatives.’
(Jammes, 1981, p. 13). Blanquart-Evrard had essentially created a publishing service that
would be most comparable to the publishers that artists and photographers use today.
Blanquart-Evrard’s books, as well as many other publishers of photobooks at the
time, most notably Blanquart-Evrard’s Paris based rival H de Fonteny, were primarily
documenting that which could not be easily accessed by the public. These early photobooks
were used as a tool to reflect ‘the pedagogical cultural interests of the educated classes,
with their tendency to be high-minded and ‘improving’.... Photography in the nineteenth
century, particularly as published in books and albums, was essentially a methodology for
garnering facts’. (Parr and Badger, 2004, p. 16). The majority of photobooks from the early
stages of photography were primarily travel books, bringing the far nearer.
Later in the nineteenth century, photobooks stuck with having a slant towards a way
of photographically documenting a particular subject, the photograph as a whole being
‘seen simply as a superior instrument for recording visual fact.’ (Alan Fern, 1976, p. 11). The
most prominent of this style of photobook were focussed on documenting the Civil War,
being Alexander Gardner’s Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War (1866) and
George N Barnard’s Photographic Views of the Sherman Campaign (1866). This
documentary style of photography was very popular at the time, thus the publications were
too, with ‘contemporary audiences still in thrall to the documentary potential of the
camera’. (Parry and Badger, 2004, p. 37).
Garnder, A. (1866) Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War. Washington: Philp & Solomons.
Barnard, G.N. (1866) Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign. New York : Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck.
It was pointed out by Charles Caffin in his 1901 essay Photography as a Fine Art that:
There are two distinct roads in photography – the utilitarian and the aesthetic; the
goal of one being a record of facts, and the other an expression of beauty....there is
the photograph whose motive is purely aesthetic: to be beautiful’. (1989, p. 159).
This highlights that as photography slowly became more accepted as a fine art form, mainly
due to the efforts of the Pictorialism movement of late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, so too did the photobooks created at the time as the images contained within
swayed towards the aesthetic rather than the document. Known today as “photographic
modernism”, the photograph as an art form began to run through to the books being
published, such is the common style of today’s photobooks.
As photobooks began to drift away from the documenting form of the nineteenth
century, photographers saw the potential for the book to not only display their work as a
portfolio to display their images but physically turn the book itself in to an art form. With
this ideology the photobooks created had a very solid theme running through them.
Germaine Krull’s photobook Etudes de Nu (1930) is a strong early example of a solidly
themed book. With intentions far from documenting the human form, the book attempts to
encapsulate the nude in an intimate, almost empathetic way, much the opposite of the
documentary style of the earliest photobooks.
Krull, G. (1930) Etudes de Nu. Paris: Librairie des Arts Décoratifs.
However, it was not just the content of the books that were used as a technique to
develop the book as an art form. Artists soon began to change the physical structure of the
book, away from the traditional style of the western codex, thus affecting the flow of the
books narrative. Japanese photobooks were particularly effective at doing this with artists
such as Eikoh Hosoe and Yukio Mishima and most notably Kikuji Kawada and their
respective books Barakei Shinshuban (1971) and Chizu (1965), both of which collapsed the
book away from a page by p
age object to a piece that, as the cover was unfolded, various layers became revealed.
Hosoe, E. and Mishima, Y. (1971) Barakei Shinshuban. Tokyo: Shuei-sha.
Kawada, K. (1965) Chizu. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha.
Hans Peter Feldmann is another artist who has broken down the concept of the book
to display his work. Though individually the books Feldmann creates are essentially forms of
the traditional codex, together, his Bilder (1971) works create a collection of small books
that must be interacted with and discovered by the reader. The images contained within
each book have a very strong and obvious theme, be it aeroplanes flying over his head or a
square on shot of women’s knees, all of which disrupt the flow that one would usually
expect of a photobook, creating an elliptical, non-linear narrative. Gerry Badger explained in
his essay Elliptical Narratives (2010) that ‘the photobook that utilizes elliptical, or non linear
narrative, is the kind of photobook in which poetry and mystery are the order of the day
rather than clarity and concrete.’ To further this statement it could be said that photobooks
attempt to tell a story through images, and that alone a ‘single photograph can express
much, but in a narrative sense, it is like a single word. Without the other ‘words’, there can
be no sentences, paragraphs, and chapters.’ (Badger, 2010).
Feldmannn, H. P. (1971) Bilder. Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz.
Another photographer who has challenged the traditional book format is Edward
Ruscha with his photobook Every Building on the Sunset Strip (1966). While still technically
related to the documentary style of earlier centuries, it still has a strong sense of narrative,
though much more linear in contrast to Feldmann’s Bilder series. Ruscha’s book has a clear
beginning and end whereas Feldmann’s work can begin at any point of the readers
choosing. Using an accordion style format, Ruscha uses a string of photographs taken along
Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip to display the street, from both North and South sides, in two long,
seamless panoramic images. This accordion style of publication, and the way that the book
must be physically turned upside down to view the opposite side of the Strip, allows for
more interaction from the reader, something that many believe to be a necessity in the
progression of the photobook.
Ruscha, E. (1966) Every Building on the Sunset Strip. Los Angeles: E. Ruscha.
A group known as On-Curating (2011) have taken this idea of reader-book
interaction and magnified it as far as it can possibly be taken. With a number of artists
developing what can be technically called “hybrid” books, the potential reader can
download a file, much in a similar way to an eBook, print it and put it together themselves
following instructions that the artist has given, producing a finished article that the reader
themselves has physically made. This method of producing books has been adopted a
growing number of artists including Clare Kenny, with her book Cyclops (2011), and Birgit
Brenner, with her recent edition of One Man, One Woman, One Camera, No Panty (2011), a
piece that uses a complicated folding technique and a large scale, altogether highlighting
the growing popularity of this format of photobook.
Kenny, C. (2011) Cyclops. On-Curating. [Online].
Brenner, B. (2011) One Man, One Woman, One Camera, No Panty. On-Curating. [Online].
The hybrid books mentioned in the previous paragraph, called so because of the
method in which you download the book, like an eBook, and print it to create a paper based
book, like a conventional photobook, are just one way in which photobooks have begun to
develop in line with the advancements in modern technologically. With the digital age in full
motion in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it was only a matter of time
before photobooks were adapted to be used in the digital world. EBooks, as described
online by Oxford Dictionaries, are ‘an electronic version of a printed book which can be read
on a computer or a specifically designed handheld device.’ (2011). Many artists and
photographers use eBooks as their medium of choice as they provide many an advantage
over the traditional printed page book, some of which Remez Sasson points out in his article
The Benefits and Advantages of Ebooks (2011). A key advantage, particularly one that
concerns photobook creators, is the increased interactivity from the reader from the very
beginning of purchasing a book. When the eBook is purchased by the costumer they
automatically have the decision as whether to read it in a screen based format, designed by
the book’s creator, or to print the book themselves and produce a version of the photobook
as it would be in the readers own image, possibly against the original authors intentions.
This process is one that highlights the questioning of the role of the author in modern,
technologically advanced times, an important topic in the field of the photobook.
In the current age of efficiency, one where time is money, it is important for
photobooks and publishing in general to find ways of reducing their costs, another key
advantage to the use of eBooks. Without printing, packaging or shipping costs, as would be
applied to a conventional paper book, the costs of publication in electronic photobooks is
significantly lower than that of the original image based publications. Talbot’s calotype
designs, in particular, were notoriously expensive to produce and distribute, another
contributor to the decline of the process. However, artists have already begun to find
cheaper alternatives to publication through self-publication.
Self-publication of photobooks is currently a popular method of distributing works of
choice partly due to its low cost and the ease of which it can be done due to modern
technology, something that can be proven in the recent photobook project undertaken by
students at London South Bank University. Laura Voss, Valeria Gaeta and Sara Soupdemots
are three of the students who partook in the project, aimed at producing their own
photobooks from scratch at a low cost and in a reasonably short space of time, achieved
exactly that. All self-published and printed through Blurb (2011), these three examples of
the books produced, titled ...All That Life Can Afford (2011), Through (2011) and Never Let
Me Go (2011) respectively, are fine specimens of what can be achieved through self
publication, all of which can be purchased online both as print on demand and eBook
editions.
Voss, L. (2011) ...All That Life Can Afford. London: Laura Voss.
Gaeta, V. (2011) Through. London: Valeria Gaeta.
Soupdemots, S. (2011) Never Let Me Go. London: Sara Soupdemots.
Similar in format to eBooks, it is now increasingly common to find books in an “app”
form. Downloadable to electronic devices such as the iPad, the iPhone and other mobile
phones, these functions allow for much more content to be included with the book as well
as the book itself. A good example of this kind of method is detailed with AJANAKUmag’s
YouTube video The Future of the Book | IDEO (2010). Although essentially advertising a
product, this short video outlines the changes that are occurring in books as technology
develops, with the particular product “Alice” offering a function that increases reader
interaction to a maximum ‘blurring the lines between fiction and reality’ (2010). These two
ideas, those of increasing the readers involvement with the book itself and disrupting what
is perceived to be the books narrative, are generally considered to be key towards updating
the traditional photobook format successfully, a stepping stone towards the future of the
book.
With such a lengthy and detailed history, photobooks have a lot to draw upon to
improve when looking to the future. While it is not possible to predict exactly what will
happen to the book, and thus photobooks as well, it is possible to estimate what could
become of them, John Biggs, with his article The Future of Books: A Dystopian Timeline
(2011), is one such predictor. Biggs states that as books progress in form, alongside
advances in technology, that the book will become ‘at best, an artifact (sic) and at worst a
nuisance. Book collections won’t disappear ... but generally all publishing will exist digitally.’
(2011). Another hot topic that is widely discussed regarding the future of the book, as
mentioned earlier, is that of the role of the author.
As more and more photobooks begin to blur the lines between author and reader as
creator, significantly the hybrid books that allow the reader to produce their own format of
the photobook, the role of the author is naturally questioned. As Ewan Morrison explains in
his article Are books dead, and can authors survive? (2011), established authors are no
longer being sought after to produce books, with the automatic effect of the advanced
payments given to them being reduced. Because of this, and other factors such as the rise of
self-publication the author as it is currently known is dying out. ‘An alternative could lie in
authors writing apps and blogs’ (Morrison, 2011), where companies such as Unbound (2011)
pay book creators a set amount per hit to their blogs which subsequently rise interest in any
future publications, and the funds required to produce them, before they are physically
published.
While it is unclear as to precisely where the direction of the photobook will go, there
is clarification, as this essay highlights, as to where the photobook has been, what it has
achieved and what it is still doing today. From its origins in the nineteenth century with
Talbot’s calotype designs, the photobook has physically travelled further than most would
have expected, fully utilising the digital age in its quest to bring an artist’s visualisation to
fruition on the page, or screen, in an efficient and successful, yet poetic, way. With the
possibilities to be adapted in endless ways to portray an intended narrative in a desired
manner, the photobook has strongly established itself as an art form in its own right, nestled
neatly ‘between the novel and film’. (Parr and Badger, 2004, p. 6).
Bibliography:
AJANAKUmag (2010) The Future of the Book | IDEO. Available at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISxgVmRnFq8 (Accessed: 28 October 2011).
‘Artist’s book’ (2011) Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_art (Accessed: 27 October
2011).
Badger, G. (2010) ‘Elliptical Narratives: Some Thoughts on the Photobook’, in Badger, G. (ed.) The Pleasures of
Good Photographs. New York: Aperture.
Barnard, G.N. (1866) Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign. New York : Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck.
Biggs, J. (2011) ‘The Future of Books: A Dystopian Timeline’, Tech Crunch, 27 September. Available at:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/27/the-future-of-books-a-dystopian-timeline/ (Accessed: 28 October 2011).
Blurb (2011) Make Your Own Book. Available at: http://www.blurb.com/ (Accessed: 12 December 2011).
‘Book’ (2011) Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books#History_of_books (Accessed: 27
October 2011).
Brenner, B. (2011) One Man, One Woman, One Camera, No Panty. On-Curating. [Online]. Available at:
http://www.on-curating.org/documents/issue1011/brenner_RTP.pdf (Accessed: 11 December 2011).
Bury, S. (1995) Artist’s Books. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing Group.
Caffin, C. (1989) ‘Photography as a Fine Art’, in Szarkowski, J. and Weiley, S. (eds.) Photography Until Now.
New York: Museum of Modern Art.
Christie’s (2011) Sale 2279/Lot 533. Available at:
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5236714 (Accessed: 11 December 2011).
Daiter, S., Gossage, J. and Mott, J. (2006) From Fair to Fine: 20th Century Photography Books That Matter.
Chicago: Stephen Daiter Gallery.
Feldmann, H. P. (1971) Bilder. Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz.
Fern, A. (1976) ‘Documentation, Art, and the Nineteenth-Century Photograph’, in Snyder, J. and Munson, D.
(eds.) The Documentary Photograph as a Work of Art: American Photographs 1860-1876. Chicago: University
of Chicago.
Gaeta, V. (2011) Through. London: Valeria Gaeta.
Gardner, A. (1866) Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War. Washington: Philp & Solomons.
Hosoe, E. and Mishima, Y. (1971) Barakei Shinshuban. Tokyo: Shuei-sha.
Institute for the Future of the Book (2011) Institute for the Future of the Book. Available at:
http://www.futureofthebook.org/ (Accessed: 28 October 2011).
Jammes, I. (1981) Blanquart-Evrard et les Origines de l'Édition Photographique Française: Catalogue raisonné
des albums photographiques édités (1851-1855). Librairie Droz: Geneva.
Kawada, K. (1965) Chizu. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha.
Kenny, C. (2011) Cyclops. On-Curating. [Online]. Available at: http://www.oncurating.org/documents/issue1011/kenny_RTP.pdf (Accessed: 11 December 2011).
Krull, G. (1930) Etudes de Nu. Paris: Librairie des Arts Décoratifs.
Morrison, E. (2011) ‘Are books dead, and can authors survive?’, The Guardian, 22 August [Online]. Available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/22/are-books-dead-ewan-morrison (Accessed: 28 October 2011).
On-Curating (2011) ONCURATING.org. Available at: http://www.on-curating.org/index.php (Accessed: 11
December 2011.
Oxford Dictionaries (2011) e-book. Available at: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/e-book?q=ebook
(Accessed: 12 December 2011).
Parr, M. & Badger, G. (2004) The Photobook: A History. Vol I. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.
Parr, M. & Badger, G. (2006) The Photobook: A History. Vol II. London: Phaidon Press Ltd.
Ruscha, E. (1966) Every Building on the Sunset Strip. Los Angeles: E. Ruscha.
Sasson, R. (2011) The Benefits and Advantages of Ebooks. Available at:
http://www.successconsciousness.com/ebooks_benefits.htm (Accessed: 12 December 2011).
Smith, K. A. (2005) Structure of the Visual Book. New York: Keith A. Smith Books.
Soupdemots, S. (2011) Never Let Me Go. London: Sara Soupdemots.
Talbot, W.H.F. (1844) The Pencil In Nature. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
Talbot, W.H.F. (1845) Sun Pictures in Scotland. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans.
Unbound (2011) Unbound. Available at: http://unbound.co.uk/ (Accessed: 12 December 2011).
Voss, L. (2011) ...All That Life Can Afford. London: Laura Voss.
Image Sources:
Talbot, W.H.F. (1844) The Pencil In Nature. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. Found at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/33447/33447-h/33447-h.html
Talbot, W.H.F. (1845) Sun Pictures in Scotland. London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans. Found at:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Talbot_Sun_Pictures_in_Scotland.jpg
Gardner, A. (1866) Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the War. Washington: Philp & Solomons. Found at:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gardners-photographic-sketch/id446951094?mt=8
Barnard, G.N. (1866) Photographic Views of Sherman’s Campaign. New York : Press of Wynkoop & Hallenbeck.
Found at: http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/hargrett/barnard/
Krull, G. (1930) Etudes de Nu. Paris: Librairie des Arts Décoratifs. Found at:
http://www.photosapiens.com/Livres-de-nus-une-anthologie.html
Hosoe, E. and Mishima, Y. (1971) Barakei Shinshuban. Tokyo: Shuei-sha. Found at:
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=5054265
Kawada, K. (1965) Chizu. Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppan-sha. Found at: http://www.artvalue.com/auctionresult-kawada-kikuji-1933-japan-chizu-the-map-2354240.htm
Feldmann, H. P. (1971) Bilder. Cologne: Galerie Paul Maenz. Found at:
http://www.arcadja.com/auctions/en/feldmann_hans_peter/artist/29402/
Ruscha, E. (1966) Every Building on the Sunset Strip. Los Angeles: E. Ruscha. Found at:
http://www.manhattanrarebooks-art.com/ruscha.htm
Kenny, C. (2011) Cyclops. On-Curating. [Online]. Found at: http://www.oncurating.org/documents/issue1011/kenny_RTP.pdf
Brenner, B. (2011) One Man, One Woman, One Camera, No Panty. On-Curating. [Online]. Found at:
http://www.on-curating.org/documents/issue1011/brenner_RTP.pdf
Voss, L. (2011) ...All That Life Can Afford. London: Laura Voss. [Own Photograph}
Gaeta, V. (2011) Through. London: Valeria Gaeta. [Own Photograph]
Soupdemots, S. (2011) Never Let Me Go. London: Sara Soupdemots. [Own Photograph]