While we're on the subject of self-published books, I thought I'd mention my most recent acquisition. Now, I'm not supposed to be buying any more photo-books at the moment, but when I saw the title of this one, I knew I had to check it out. Traffic Cones of Japan by Max Cameron does sound like a runner-up in the "Oddest Title of the Year" awards, but is exactly the sort of quirky, obsessive use of photography's superpower of documentary fidelity and an artist's ability to notice and connect [1] that combine so well with the book-form's own superpower of simultaneous serial and random-access presentation. Curiously, this sort of project seems to suit the culture and environment of the Far East : see Michael Wolf's ongoing series of thematic photographs of Hong Kong and Tokyo.
As soon as I saw a review (in PetaPixel, I think) I ordered a copy from Good Press (an interesting link, that, for any self-publishers out there). To my mind it's perfect: small, well-priced, unpretentious, obsessive, humorous, and the photographs are uniformly excellent. If you can find one (Good Press are already sold out), why not buy a copy and earn yourself some book-making karma-points by supporting a worthwhile project?
3 comments:
Thanks for the link to Michael Wolf, Mike. Prolific was the first word that came to mind when I looked through his website. Some interesting pictures there.
Good Press is about half an hour from me. I hadn't head of them till now but will pay a visit next time I'm in Glasgow.
Cheers,
Stephen.
Stephen,
I've got a few of those little Peperoni Books by Michael Wolf and they are very nice. "Tokyo Compression", of course, is what made his name.
Mike
Mike,
I had to Google "Tokyo Compression" but on seeing some of those photos, I immediately recognised them. (Wolf isn't a photographer I'd been much aware of for whatever reason.)
Peperoni books looks ike an interesting website — I'm off to look through their catalogue.
Cheers,
Stephen.
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