Stieglitz's Camera Work--Reprinted

Jeremy

Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2002
Messages
2,761
Location
Denton, TX
Format
Multi Format
After a pre-posting check with our veritable leader I thought I would make a post here on APUG about my work to have Stieglitz's Camera Work reprinted.

Well, the time has finally come and the first 4 issues are being offered to the public!

Just to give you a more detailed description of what I'm doing: I was able to gather a set of all 50 issues on loan and am in the process of scanning the issues and creating a digital master set to be uploaded to http://www.lulu.com for reprinting. With the availability of books with high quality (well, offset) reproductions of the illustrations

Seen here:

http://www.amazon.com/Alfred-Stiegl...6448812?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181005436&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Camera-Works-...6448812?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181005436&sr=8-2

my main concern is the text (though every page in the original is accounted for!), so the books are being printed in b&w to keep the costs down. They will be released in volumes of ~300 pages (which is 3-4 issues depending on individual issue length) with a cost of $19.99/volume.

I am asking you to spend a little bit of money and invest the time to read Stieglitz's Camera Work: Issues 1-4

If you have any questions feel free to ask them here or PM or email me privately. As all of the issues pre-date 1923 there is no copyright infringement as it is not copyrighted material, it is in the public domain (this fact was cross-checked with the Library of Congress).

(http://www.lulu.com/content/879217)
 

Chazzy

Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2004
Messages
2,942
Location
South Bend,
Format
Multi Format
Jeremy said:
my main concern is the text (though every page in the original is accounted for!), so the books are being printed in b&w to keep the costs down.
Click to expand...

So the color of the original illustrations will not be reproduced???
 
OP
OP

Jeremy

Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2002
Messages
2,761
Location
Denton, TX
Format
Multi Format
Chazzy said:
So the color of the original illustrations will not be reproduced???
Click to expand...

Correct, there is zero color used in the printing of these books.

Also, the printed page looks much better than the "Preview" pages provided; I have my copy in hand and it looks much better than I had hoped for!

The illustrations are still lacking in depth, but as I stated above, the Taschen and Dover books do a much better job with the illustrations than I could do AND keep the volumes affordable. To be honest, I could make the volumes ridiculously expensive with off-set printing and still never approach the quality of the original hand-pulled photogravures.
 

JG Motamedi

Member
Joined
Dec 18, 2004
Messages
472
Location
Portland, OR
Format
Large Format
Thanks Jeremy!

I have placed my order and look forward to seeing the other volumes as well as the Collodion Journal and the Phila. Photographer.

Great work.

jason
 

mtbbrian

Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2005
Messages
309
Location
Salt Lake Ci
Format
Multi Format
Speaking of Stieglitz..
I am reading
The Moment Of Seeing: Minor White at the CSFA, and it mentions something that I beleive is attributed to Stieglitz.
"The Theory of Equivalants"
Is that something Stieglitz came up with or was it someone else?
I haven't found any good information on this theory, that is why I am asking here.
Brian
 

RobertP

Subscriber
Joined
May 11, 2006
Messages
1,190
Format
ULarge Format
here here...I'll be placing an order also
 

jp80874

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
3,488
Location
Bath, OH 442
Format
ULarge Format
Not mentioned yet, but one more reason to thank Jeremy by purchasing this is that we can see this version. When my Taschen copy arrived I was so disappointed to see how small it was, 5 ½ x 7 ¾ inches. Jeremy’s work has grown to 8 ½ x 11. Thank you sent to Lulu by Paypal.

John Powers
 

doughowk

Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2003
Messages
1,809
Location
Kalamazoo, MI
Format
Large Format
Received today the Lulu book, and its very well done. Interesting to see the arguments that were then current - such as whether photography should include manipulated images with Steichen saying all images are manipulated - unless we can create a machine that does it all. Shall be interesting reading.
Thanks, Jeremy
 
OP
OP

Jeremy

Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2002
Messages
2,761
Location
Denton, TX
Format
Multi Format
Speaking of the next installment, does anyone have any suggestions for improving volume 2 (issues 5-8)?

Jason suggested a title page separating each issue which I will implement.

Any other ideas?
 

athanasius80

Member
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
645
Location
Huntington B
Format
Multi Format
A title page would be nice. A full table of contents or index for the complete run would be quite helpful too. So when is Vol. 2 ready?
 
OP
OP

Jeremy

Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2002
Messages
2,761
Location
Denton, TX
Format
Multi Format
athanasius80 said:
A title page would be nice.
Click to expand...

done and done

athanasius80 said:
A full table of contents or index for the complete run would be quite helpful too.
Click to expand...

hadn't thought about that and i'm wondering if the usefulness of it is worthwhile in the face of indexing 50 issues. also, the sheets in my book aren't paginated so i'm thinking of adding running page numbers for each volume (so there would be 2 page numbers on each page), but the more i think about it the less i like the idea

athanasius80 said:
So when is Vol. 2 ready?
Click to expand...

the 2nd volume is nearing completion, but i am considering releasing them once a month/every 6 weeks/every 2 months. this is not the only digitization project i'm working on (2 others are in the works). Thoughts?
 

jp80874

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
3,488
Location
Bath, OH 442
Format
ULarge Format
I love the idea. I love the text. Is there anything you or Lulu could do to improve the quality of the photos? I can probably go find those pictures in other books, but if possible an improvement would be nice. Thank you for doing this.

John Powers
 
OP
OP

Jeremy

Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2002
Messages
2,761
Location
Denton, TX
Format
Multi Format

John,

The short answer is no. I tried out a couple of different settings buying a couple of copies and while the text has been spot-on every time the quality of the images is too variable. There is the option to raise the image quality, but it requires printing with color inks (so you'd have color problems) and EVERY page has to be printed with the color machines and this increases the book price to a level I find unacceptable. Finally, even with me raising the book price and printing in color I still wouldn't get the quality in the offset printing books I referenced in the original post (and you can get the Taschen for under $16) so I find it a wash and am concentrating on the text.
 

jp80874

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
3,488
Location
Bath, OH 442
Format
ULarge Format
Jeremy,

Thanks for trying. I have the Taschen and several books of photographers of the time. I really like what you have done. Let us know when the next one is ready.

John
 

jp80874

Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2004
Messages
3,488
Location
Bath, OH 442
Format
ULarge Format
 

clay

Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2002
Messages
1,335
Location
Asheville, N
Format
Multi Format
The images do not show the pattern you refer to. They are not photo-quality, however. But certainly good enough to use with the Taschen book at your elbow for some better looks at some of the winners.

Gene_Laughter said:
On a couple of the sample pages of images there were noticable Moire' patterns. Do these patterns exist in the reprint of 1-4?

Thanks,

Gene
Click to expand...
 

Tony Egan

Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2005
Messages
1,295
Location
Sydney, Australia
Format
Multi Format

Brian,
"Equivalence" was a Stieglitz concept built on further by Minor White. This article may be of interest to you:

http://www.jnevins.com/whitereading.htm
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn more…