Posts Tagged ‘Heidi Romano’
BIFB: PHOTOBOOK WEEKEND – A Report
BIFB Webpage Header
WORLD PHOTOBOOK WEEKEND
A Photobook Club Australia World Photobook Day activity for 2019
The Ballarat International Foto Biennale was proud to host the World Photobook Day during the festival between Saturday 12 October and Monday 14 October. The call-out was to Celebrate World Photobook Day with other photography enthusiasts by attending 4 photobook events over the weekend.
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Doug meeting with Aaron Bradbrook
The back story for the BIFB’s World Photobook Weekend is that in March Vicky and I visited the BIFB in its home the National Centre of Photography. In a conversation with Associate Curator Aaron Bradbrook we pitched the idea of a photobook event to coincide with World Photobook Day.
In followup conversations with the BIFB Creative Director Fiona Sweet a series of four events became part of the program. The events were: a keynote talk, a forum, a photobook fair and a birthday celebration.
With BIFB Creative Director Fiona Sweet
In the months that followed we worked with Fiona, refined the event focus and the people who could be involved. We then followed through with our side of the necessary preparations and promotion of the event.
This series of Blog posts provides a report on the four events as well as an opportunity to present a commentary on the Australian and New Zealand photobooks that was the topic of the talk I presented on the first day of the weekend.
To navigate through the events just ‘CLICK’ on the title tab. At the end of each post there’s a ‘RETURN to the HOMEPAGE’ link.
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SATURDAY 12 OCTOBER
Doug Spowart + ANZ Photobooks
TALK BY DOUG SPOWART
Many Tribes: The Australian And New Zealand Photobook
Click LINK
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SUNDAY 13 OCTOBER
Book Fair participants
PHOTOBOOK FAIR
Click LINK
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Forum Panelists
FORUM: Photobooks – Getting Published & Getting Collected
with Patrick Pound, Sarah Walker, Heidi Romano and David Wadelton. Moderated by Doug Spowart
Click LINK
MONDAY 14 OCTOBER
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World Photobook Day Birthday Celebration
HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARTY! Celebrating 176 years of photobooks
Click LINK
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A PHOTOBOOK FORUM: BIFB Photobook Weekend
BIFB Web
FORUM: Photobooks – Getting Published & Getting Collected
with Patrick Pound, Sarah Walker, Heidi Romano and David Wadelton.
Moderated by Doug Spowart
What sparks and drives the passion for the photo book? How do photographers get published? And how can photographers establish and grow meaningful collections? Join Doug Spowart and a diverse panel of photobook practitioners and publishers as they answer these and other associated questions through their personal observations, stories and predictions.
VENUE: World Photobook Weekend Hub, Mitchell Harris Wines, 38 Doveton Street North
BIFB Creative Director Fiona Sweet welcomes the attendees ………PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
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The Ballarat International Foto Biennale Creative Director Fiona Sweet Acknowledged country, welcomed the 45-50 attendees to the Forum and introduced Dr Doug Spowart as Moderator for the event.
Doug Spowart thanked Fiona and announced that the BIFB Photobook Weekend celebrates 10 years of Biennale activity in the field of photobooks as what he believed was the first photobook exhibition in a major gallery was ‘Book One’ curated by Juno Gemes at the Ballarat Art Gallery in 2009. He mentioned also that as part of the core program in 2009 he and Victoria Cooper presented the exhibition ‘Book: Site’ at the Post Office Gallery that featured their photobook and artists’ book work.
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BIFB Photobooks @ 2009 event
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Spowart went on to advise that due to the recent passing of the doyen of New Zealand photobooks Harvey Benge that the event would be dedicated to his memory.
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Doug introduces panel ………..PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
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With the formalities completed Doug Spowart introduced the Forum panelists:
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Panelist: Patrick Pound ……………..PHOTO: Doug Spowart
Dr PATRICK POUND
Is an avid collector interested in systems and the ordering of objects: an attempt, perhaps, to make things coherent. As Pound says, ‘to collect is to gather your thoughts through things’.
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Panelist: Sarah Walker ………………PHOTO: Doug Spowart
SARAH WALKER completed a Bachelor of Photography (Fine Art) in 2016 at Photography Studies College. She utilises combination of found and archival imagery, as well as video, as a part of her photographic practice.
Panelist: David Wadelton …………..PHOTO: Doug Spowart
DAVID WADELTON lives and works in Melbourne. Wadelton’s practice includes paintings and photographs and is also recognised for his significant contributions to the field of experimental music in Australia.
HEIDI ROMANO is a photographer and festival director with a diverse skill set, honed through 15 years of experience. She is a passionate book designer and loves working with artists through all levels of project development. Due to ill health Heidi had to withdraw at short notice.
The Briefing
Spowart then briefed the panellists and the audience as to the program for the event. He described that the Forum would be in the format of a casual Question & Answer event. He asked that the audience would hold their questions until the end of the structured program and that all up the total duration should be around 70-80 minutes. After which members of the audience could catch up with the panellists if they had private questions that they wanted to ask.
The questions were displayed on a digital screen and panellists were invited to comment as directed by the moderator. Sometimes discussions ensued between panellists and occasionally a few quick comments came from the audience.
Panel in action …………PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
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The questions and discussion points included the following:
- Why do photographers want to make photobooks?
- What is there about the book that appeals to people who want to connect with the book or purchase it?
- Do collectors look at a photobooks differently to other people? Editioning / Signed copies / A collection focus / Investment
- How do you display/store your photobooks
- What do you look for in a photobook? – Do you have a favourite?
- How do you see photobooks as the main or part or as complimentary of your creative practice?
- Where do you get the inspiration to make/design or purchase a photobook?
- Building a clientele – groups, bookstores, student/professional peers, through exhibitions, online…?
- Awards and competitions – how you see their role in supporting photobook practice?
- Is there anything that you find particularly special about the idea of a book or the object that is the book?
- Can you describe the stages that you have gone through from idea to launch of a recent book?
- How do you keep up to date with your area of interest in photobooks?
- What is the next book that you want to buy?
- Have you a story about the book you wanted and you missed it? OR The bargain?
- What would you expect from someone who is to design your book?
- What do you think a designer would you expect from a photographer/publisher commissioning you to design a book?
- The photobook as a companion/catalogue to an exhibition – do you have an opinion about the exhibition in the book as a catalogue or should the book be an autonomous artwork based on the same content
- What book forms interest you — concertina / codex / single sheet boxed sets, zines, fine press, limited editions…?
- Commerce: marketing and selling books – how does that work?
- Can you tell us about a book that you are working on…?
- Does the idea for a book come first OR does the book come from an existing image resource?
- The use of found objects and ephemera in photobooks …
- How do you know if what you have done is a success…?
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Sarah answers a question ……….PHOTO: Victoria Cooper
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At the end of the event Doug Spowart thanked the panellists, the audience, the BIFB and his partner Victoria Cooper. It was mentioned that the Photobook Fair was on at the Art Gallery and that now would be a good time to add special books to the attendee’s collections. The room was quickly cleared except for a few who remained to ask questions of the panellists.
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We were sorry that the venue was not equipped with equipment to record the event.
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Return to the BIFB Photobook Weekend Blog Homepage.
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PUMPING-UP the VOLUME on PHOTOBOOKS
Screen dump on Volume site
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I attended Volume: Another Art Book Fair in Sydney on the weekend of September 11+13, 2015. The event was a collaboration between Artspace, Perimeter Books and the American artists’ book not-for-profit book shop Printed Matter. Packed into the Artspace building in Woolloomooloo were around 100 ‘Art Book’ makers, publishers and sellers all vying for the attention of potential purchasers. The table holders had spread before them all things book – let’s not try and get into discussions around what an ‘art book’ is, but rather celebrate the range of published products from thin stapled zines and comics, to self-pub photobooks, artists’ books and gallery catalogues, and further to trade-styled ‘fine art’ books and livre d’artiste productions.
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Some of the Volume Art Book Fair table participants included:
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Shannon Michael Cane from Printed Matter
Cameron Cope
The Perimeter Books table
Bloom Publishing Lloyd Stubbers + Jay Dymock
Bloom Publishing: Lloyd Stubbers + Jay Dymock
Richard Tipping and Max Ernst (David Dellafiora)
Thorny Devil Press: Richard Tipping
George Voulgaropoulos
Pneuma Publishing: George Voulgaropoulos
Deanna Hitti
Libby Jefferies MomentoPro after a long day on Sunday
Anita Totha Remote Photobooks NZ
Kate Golding
John Ogden Cyclops Press
Helen Frajman – m.33
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Selling books to interested collectors and lovers of books is one thing but as is the case with the emergent trend in self-pub everyone wants to have their own book. To cater to this growing group of keen makers the program included many free forums, workshops and lectures by a variety of key makers and commentators on various aspects of the disciplines of writing and self-publishing (self-pub).
Why Publish panel
As my interest is in topics related to photobooks I attended two sessions: Why Publish and Designing Photobooks. The why-pub panel consisted of Helen Frajman (m.33), Daniel Boetker-Smith (Asia-Pacific Photobook Library), Brad Haylock, Jack Harries and Geordie Cargill and Shannon Michael Cane from Printed Matter. Attendees, of which there were around 30, heard discussions relating to the usual issues of publishing, getting a designer, edition numbers, marketing, selling and getting your work into the right hands including the international market. Brad Haylock suggested the key themes for photobooks were:
- Technologies and organizational forms
- Social relations
- Institutional and administrative arrangements
- Production and labor processes
- Relations to nature
- The reproduction of daily life and the species
- Mental conceptions of the world
Ultimately the overall message seemed to be ‘Give it a go’!
The Designing for Photo Books panel
Associate Professor Christopher Stewart from University of Technology Sydney chaired the Designing for Photobook panel. Each speaker showed examples of their work and discussed design concerns associated with their books. Heidi Romano from Unlessyouwill spoke of her history in design, her passion for the photobook and her experience of the international world of book design. She cited her interest in advancing Australian photobook design as being a driver for her establishment of Photobook Melbourne. Esther Teichmann, and artist from the UK discussed her exhibition work and the challenge of bringing wall-work into the space of the book as well as her experiences, not always pleasant ones, with book designers. Tom Evangeledis, Black Eye Gallery described his interest in encouraging exhibitors at his gallery to consider a book to support the exhibition but also to enhance the opportunity for the artist’s work to be extended beyond the exhibition dates. Chloe Ferres, probably kept the most on track with the topic of book design by presenting a range of works that in some ways subvert the idea of the book being a vessel to hold photographs that express a narrative – she considers the book structure as also important to the narrative and uses a range of design interventions to disrupt the preciousness that many photographers seem to consider important when they make books.
Christopher Stewart posed questions to the panelists to draw out aspects of the topic but when asked if there were questions from the floor Daniel Boetker-Smith asked about how we can make photobooks that are more about the ‘fetish’ of the book – ‘some books all look the same – I’m interested in all kinds of books. A young photographer in Myanmar stapling a bunch of photographs together to make a book is just as important to me as some “coffee table tome”!’ An attendee agreed and responded that books often look the same as they as designed from a dummy where all decisions about the book are considered at the beginning and immutable – whereas another less formal method is the development of a book in a process where opportunities for review and discovery are made along the way allowing the book to be like a collaborator with the artist…
Bella Capezio making Insta Photobooks for APPA
Make your own Photobook with Garry Trinh
While some attendees attended these lecture sessions others were busy making books. The print-on-demand company BLURB offered bookmaking workshops over the weekend led by photobook self-publisher Garry Trinh. Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive presented a selection of their books at the event and founder Daniel Boetker-Smith and Bella Capezio led photobook-making sessions as well.
Victoria Cooper and Ruyin Yang
The biggest book-making venture over the weekend was a special project coordinated by Onestar Press who, with Artspace and other supporters including Surry Hills Print & Design Konica-Minolta, design students from University of New South Wales – Art &Design. The project, entitled ‘Book Machine’, brought together a designer with a ‘content provider’ (artist or photographer), and over the course of 3.5 hours the two work together to design a book. Overnight the book was printed and made available to its collaborative participants.
Alexie Glass-Kantor – introduces the Book Machine commentators
Late on Sunday afternoon the Artspace coordinators drew together a distinguished panel of erudite book critics and commentators including Brianna Munting – NAVA, Simon Barney Artist, Alexie Glass-Kantor – Executive Director Artspace, Maddalena Quarta – One Star Press, Bella Capezio – Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive, Philip Keir – publisher and artists’ book collector and Nicholas Tsoutas – Curator and Art management executive. A crowd gathered to hear this discussion and celebrate this unusual project.
Book Machine
Towards the end of the day on Sunday I rushed around to catch up with people that I still hadn’t spoken with and books not yet seen. I felt something of the heightened energy levels with which these table holders had been operating in the preceding days. Did they sell enough books…? Did they make contacts with people who will do future business with them or provide content for future books…? Did they get a chance to check out what everyone else was doing…? Did they get to do a Book Machine project…? Buy a pie at Harry’s Cafe de Wheels or take-in the harbor, the Finger Wharf and the view of naval ships at Garden Island.
Harry’s Cafe de Wheels
Volume: Another Art Book Fair was a major undertaking for the visionaries who conceived it and then brought it into fruition. There were so many activities, add-on events, presentations and booksellers and books available for artbookophiles in which to luxuriate. There was a real sense of community created in this art book fair that can only advance the disciplines associated with it. One thing is for certain, at least for me, is that I know I have just attended one of the most significant art book fairs to be held in this country to date. When, and where the next one will be is something we’ll await with much anticipation…
Doug Spowart
14 September 2015
THE ARTIST & PHOTOBOOK MELBOURNE
The forum panel….Photo: Anthony McKee
In February this year Melbourne hosted the biggest photobook event ever in this country. Called Photobook Melbourne the event brought together exponents, collectors and critics from around the world as well as from around Australia and New Zealand. Hundreds of books were handled, read and appraised in the many galleries and venues that came on board to support the event.
Martin Parr and Gerry Badger in their second volume of The Photobook: A History (2006), recognised artists who worked with photographs in a specific chapter entitled Appropriating Photography: The Artist’s Photobook.
Participants in the artists’ book discipline have been active indie, DIY publishers worldwide for sixty years or more and many of them use photography in their books. They have well established networks, events activities, awards, critical debate and collectors both private and public.
At a time such as Photobook Melbourne where all things photobook are celebrated and discussed it may be worthwhile to consider what concurrence may exist today between the artists’ book and the photobook. How do artists consider their use of photography and the photograph in their books? Is there any sympatico between the photobook and the artists’ book.
To address these and many more questions I was supported by the Photobook Melbourne organisers Heidi Romano and Daniel Boetker-Smith, to convene a forum to bring the voice of the artists’ book into the photobook conversation. The participants in the forum were; Dr Lyn Ashby, Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, Peter Lyssiotis, Des Cowley and Dr Victoria Cooper (who was co-opted as Georgia Hutchison withdrew due to personal reasons in the final days).
The proceedings of the forum, with the support of the participants, have now been formed into a PDF booklet that can be downloaded FREE from this site. To provide a taste of the presentations I present the following quotes from the texts:
The PDF Forum book
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DOWNLOAD HERE: PM-OTHER PB-BOOK
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Lyn Asby
Lyn Ashby
I make books. With few exceptions, these are hand-made, limited-edition books that would generally be considered to be “artist’s books” using the standard codex form. These are not photographic books. That is, the photograph is rarely the core of the meaning or purpose of the book. But I often use components or aspects of photographs and composite these with graphics, texts, drawings and painting etc, all of which feed into the overall material on each page.
Gracia Haby + Louise Jennison
Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison
For those of you who we have yet to meet, we are besotted with paper for its adaptable, foldable, cut-able, concealable, and revealing nature. In our artists’ books, prints, zines, drawings, and collages, we use play, humour, and perhaps the poetic, to lure you closer. And sometimes this will incorporate photography. For us, it is not the medium that is always of greatest import, but the message. And so, we use found photographs in our artists’ books and zines not because they are photos, but because of what they can enable us to say, and what we hope you might feel.
Des Cowley
Des Cowley
History of the Book Manager, Collection Development & Discovery, State Library Victoria
One of the challenges for libraries and collecting institutions is to build representative collections of contemporary books and ephemeral works created by artists, photographers, and zinemakers. Artists books, photobooks, and zines generally circulate outside mainstream distribution channels – publishers, general bookshops, distributors – and are effectively off-radar for many libraries. It is therefore incumbent upon staff in these institutions to build networks and relationships with the communities creating this work in order to be informed about what is being produced, and to ensure this material is acquired and preserved for future researchers.
Peter Lyssiotis
Peter Lyssiotis
I had a friend who lived in Belgium. He died a while back. Before he did, though, he painted a pipe on a canvas and underneath it he wrote “This is not a pipe”.
To continue my friend’s mission I say “This is not a book”.
The artists’ book is rather a workshop, a garage; a space where a time-honored craft is practised: it is here that the world gets repaired, reconditioned, reassembled.
Victoria Cooper
Victoria Cooper
The digital cutting, dissecting, layering and suturing of the photographic quotations is an absorbing process through which the visual story emerges. I then materialize this virtual image of the narrative as a physical book in many forms: scroll, concertina or codex. Rather than images on a gallery wall, the narrative space of the book offers for me an endless potential for interplay of the corporeal and the imagination through the idiosyncratic experience of reading.
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DOWNLOAD THE BOOK HERE: PM-OTHER PB-BOOK
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BOOKEND: Photobook Melbourne — what a read?
Photobook Melbourne: Peter Lyssiotis looking at an Aperture Books
We all know that feeling when you are really getting into a book, its narrative and flow, and then you reach the point where, as the last page is turned, you wish it could go on, and on… Photobook Melbourne (PM) was something of that kind of experience. The books seen, perhaps around 300, the exhibitions seen, and the people met now all vividly reside in memory and digital capture code.
The Photobook Melbourne event took place between February 12 to 22 it was coordinated by Heidi Romano and Daniel Boetker-Smith. It was always an ambitious undertaking. Its vision was to connect international photobook world with makers and lovers of the book from around Australia… and New Zealand. This was achieved through numerous exhibitions, library displays, photobook awards, forums and workshops.
Daniel Boetker-Smith + Heidi Romano PHOTO: Courtesy of Lauren Dunn www.artdocumentation.com.au
Photobook Melbourne can only be described as a massive success. The photobook community of practice needs events like these so they can band together to affirm their interest and belief in the importance and creative power of the photobook. For once, the world of photobooks has come to us, or at least Melbourne, and for that we are a stronger and more informed cohort of makers, readers, collectors and lovers of photobooks.
Some of the attendees have responded to a request for comments – others are posts from Blogs and Facebook posts…
FROM JACOB RAUPACH: Photobook Melbourne was an amazing week full of a genuinely insightful mix of talks, exhibitions and book exhibitions, with the fair during the first weekend proving to be a great networking point for the rest of the week that followed. … I felt that the inaugural festival set an amazing benchmark for the following years! Looking forward to 2016.
FROM HARVEY BENGE‘s BLOG: On a zero to ten scale I’d give the festival a ten! Visit his site for more commentaries about photobook
FROM CHRIS BOWES: For someone naïve to the world of photobooks, Photobook Melbourne was an eye opening experience. Although coming in as a virtual outsider to this rapidly expanding art scene, I sank my teeth into as many of the talks, exhibitions and book collections I could manage, and came away a lot more informed than I was going in. Personal favourites were the Paris Photo – Aperture Foundation Photobook Awards exhibition, where the content of the books was engaging and the calibre unmatched, and ‘The Other Photobook Forum’, where in particular Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison showed that with a little creativity and business sense one can make a buck and do what they love.
FROM LIBBY JEFFERY – Momento Pro: The number of participants, visitors, books and buyers at Photobook Melbourne were fantastic and they confirmed that small press and self publishing is alive and well in Australia. The Awards and Book Fair also proved that a selection of high standard work is being created here, but a collaborative promotion and showcase of Australian photo books to the global market would benefit everyone.
FROM: ANGEL LUIS GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ Facebook Comment Back in Dublin after an amazing first edition of PHOTOBOOK MELBOURNE, having discovered tons of new work and books from Australia, New Zealand, and more -and having met a truckload of awesome people.
FROM KELVIN SKEWES: As someone that attended almost all of the events that were part of Photobook Melbourne I can only describe it as a tour de force for lovers of the Photobook. The festival opened on February 12th at the Centre for Contemporary Photography with Robert Zhao Renhui’s exhibition
A Guide To The Flora And Fauna Of The World and with a smoking ceremony by the traditional owners to welcome the festival to their land. Also announced on the opening night was the Australian Photobook of the year which was won by Raphaela Rosella for her unpublished book ‘We Met a Little Early But I Get to Love You Longer’ and I was humbled to be the runner up with my newspaper as photobook ‘Nauru: What was taken and what was given’. …
The main event for the first weekend of the festival was the Photobook Melbourne Book fair at CCP an event at was full of frenetic energy and far too many photobooks to browse let alone buy; amongst the many booksellers highlights included the infatigable Perimeter book with titles from Mack and Spector books and Anita Totha from Remote books who is doing to sterling job promoting photobooks from New Zealand. …
Great thanks are due to the entire Photobook Melbourne team so thank you Heidi Romeo, Daniel Boetker-Smith, esteemed guests Ángel Luis González Fernández, Ron Jude and the Dysturb Photo Collective, festival partners and sponsors Momento Pro, Photography Studies College, Copyright Agency and venues CCP, MGA, Strange Neighbour, Colour Factory, Neo Space, Baron Said and James Makin Gallery and to all the volunteers without whom this could not have happened so thanks to Felix Wilson, Kate Robinson, Bella Capezio, Katrin Koenning and countless others.
See you next year!
MORE COMMENTS WILL BE ADDED AS THEY BECOME AVAILABLE…
WHAT FOLLOWS IS A PERSONAL DIARY OF PHOTOBOOK MELBOURNE
Our arrival on the first weekend was delayed by my recent medical incursion so we fly into Melbourne on Wednesday. Through a friend we were able to stay in an apartment right in the middle of the city and our journeys out and about were by tram, train and lifts given by friends.
The MGA – The Home of Australian Photography
THURSDAY: We attended two book related exhibitions at the Monash Gallery of Art. Badged as the ‘Home of Australian Photography’ the gallery presented two photobook exhibitions, one of images from the collection that featured the theme of books and reading and was entitled ‘Light Reading’. The other was The Natural Collection an assemblage of books by The Photobook Club’s Matt Johnston and co-curated by Lucy Johnson. The Natural Collection brings together photobooks that explore “the harmony, tension and play” that occurs in the human relationship with nature and the natural landscape.
Heidi, Steph and Vicky discussing a book
The exhibition space was setup for readers to sit and work their way through a most interesting selection of Euro/American centric responses to the theme. Grand trade books sat next to simple fold ‘n’ staple zine-like booklets. We were there with Heidi Romano, Simone Rosenbauer from Sydney and MGA Gallery’s Education and Public Programs officer Stephanie Richter. We engaged in a spirited debate about book design; production methods and how to evaluate books.
That evening we attend a dinner for PM speakers, contributors, supporters and sponsors. By this stage it was acknowledged that the PM had been an enormous success so congratulatory statements were announced and a great feeling of an Australian photobook community being well and truly launched by this event.
Bohemian Vicky+Doug
Bohemian Melbourne portrait wall
Bohemian Melbourne
FRIDAY MORNING: A breakfast of avocado, bacon and relish was partaken at a suburban street café while being interviewed by Australian Photography contributor Anthony McKee for a feature on photobooks. Morning tea with Robert Heather and Des Cowley at the State Library of Victoria and a visit to the SLV exhibition Bohemian Melbourne – a fascinating reflection on the creative, musical and arty sub-culture of Melbourne. Rennie Ellis’ photos contributed much to this history as well as poster art, paintings and the ephemera and memorabilia of the different eras represented by the theme.
The Library Project @ PSC
FRIDAY AFTERNOON: We visited Photography Studies College to view ‘The Library Project’, a collection of photobooks brought to PM by Ángel Luis González Fernández from PhotoIreland. ‘The Library Project’ aim is to collect contemporary publications based on photography to create a public resource library. We viewed many books that are not easily available to see in Australia including Cristina de Middel’s Afronauts.
The ‘OTHER’ Photobook Forum – a question from the floor
FRIDAY EVENING: Later that evening we were involved with The ‘OTHER’ Photobook Forum – Artists’ Books, Zinesters and the Photobook took place. We have been working on this project for a couple of months now and we were able to bring together key practitioners from these ‘other’ photobook disciplines who discussed and provided commentary on their use of the photo in the book. The participants included photomonteur Peter Lyssiotis, zinesters Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison, artists’ book maker Dr Lyn Ashby, Des Cowley from the State Library of Victoria and Victoria Cooper who stood in for Georgia Hutchison who was unable to attend due to extenuating family issues.
It was an event that stirred much interest with artists like Deanna Hitti and Theo Strasser attending as well as Momento Pros’ Libby Jeffery, and photobook makers Kelvin Skewes, Daniel Boetker-Smith and Chris Bowes.
Jacob Raupach @ CCP
Aperture Books on display @ The Baron Said
SATURDAY: A day to attend artists talks at the Centre for Creative Photography by, amongst others photobookmaker Jacob Raupach and the exhibition FELL – Bought a copy of his latest book WEALTH. Following up with visits to the Momento Pro Australian Photo Book of the Year Award at the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive and the Aperture Photobook exhibition @ The Baron Said and a stimulating lunch with Peter and Tess Lyssiotis @Babkah.
Lunch with Tess + Peter
Photobooked-out we headed back to the city by tram and had a chance meeting with Lismore artist and Siganto Artists Book Fellow Jan Davis who was attending a Print Council meeting – Only in Melbourne could strange intersections like that could happen.
SATURDAY EVENING: Melbourne White Night event
450,000 Melbournians took over the streets of the CBD – everything stayed open and performances and projections, bands and music were everywhere. Amongst other things we went to see the projections in the Dome at the State Library of Victoria at 10.30 at night – queued in line for 30 minutes with 1000s of others what a night…!
SUNDAY
A day of traveling home to cyclone weather drenched Brisbane.
UNTIL NEXT TIME —- For PHOTOBOOK MELBOURNE 2nd EDITION….
DOING IT BY THE BOOK: Judging the 2015 Momento Pro Australian Photo Book Awards
The 2014 Australian Photobook of the Year Finalists stack
On the 30th of January six identities from the Australian publishing and photography scene gathered in Sydney to review a selection of the best photo books from Australian authors and to select a recipient for the title Momento Pro Australian Photo Book of the Year. Prior to this event 100 books had been submitted in the award by Australian photographers working in a wide range of book forms that employ photography.
The judges for the award were: Shaune Lakin (Curator of Photography @ National Gallery Of Australia), Diana Hill [Publisher @ Murdoch Books), Sonya Jeffery (Books at Manic), Kim Hungerford (Art and Design Consultant and Buyer @ Kinokuniya), Michael Howard (Joint Art Director @ Sydney Morning Herald) and Doug Spowart (Research Fellow – Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland).
The judges deliberating PHOTO: Doug Spowart
The process started 10 days earlier when the judges were sent a USB drive containing the 100 PDF files. Within a few days the judges were to review the files and select their top 12 books. These results where then collated by the Momento Pro team to give 15 finalists. They were:
- Gold Coast Ying Ang
- Nonna to Nana Jessie + Jacqueline DiBlasi
- Typhoon Stephen Dupont
- Better Half Jackson Eaton
- Lover of Home Odette England
- The Beginning Brendan Esposito
- The Kings of KKH Andrea Francolini
- Bedrooms of the Fallen Ashley Gilbertson
- Tribal PNG David Kirkland
- In the Folds of Hills Kristian Laemmle-Ruff
- Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them Jesse Marlow
- SALT Emma Phillips
- Nauru: What was taken and what was given Kelvin Skewes
- We Met a Little Early But I Get to Love You Longer Raphaela Rosella.
- Fibro Dreams Glenn Sloggett
Of these finalists, one book was published by an academic institution, three were published through an independent publisher and two were unpublished – the remaining books were self-published. The diversity of subject matter covered by the books included a portraiture and documentary cookbook, ethnographic documentary, social documentary, conceptual projects about human relationships of place and memory, books about irony and humour or glimpsed juxtapositions of subjects seen and photographed in the street. The books mainly fitted the conventional codex model and were trade printed and bound. One ‘photo book’ was a newspaper styled publication, and another was a deluxe artists’ book laparello of an exceptionally large size.
More debating … PHOTOS: Doug Spowart
As the judges came together at the Momento Pro facility in Chippendale they introduced themselves and participated in briefings conducted by Chairman of Jurors Heidi Romano, Director of Photo Book Melbourne and Libby Jeffery from the award sponsor Momento Pro. Then each judge engaged with the books – turning pages, cracking spines, smelling paper and inks, looking, reading, touching and connecting with the narrative and the experience that each book may contain. As all books were originally seen as digital images on screen there were some surprises as the digital version presented quite different experience to the physical printed book.
At this time individual conversations took place, ideas and responses to books shared. Opinions about photo books expressed and probed. Some of the key discussion points related to questions like ‘What is a photo book?’, and the validity of certain book topics and forms like cookbooks, newspapers, grand artists’ book productions – were they able to be considered as photo books? This part of the process was useful as it enabled a range of ideas to emerge from the broad views and experience of the judging panel.
The six judges then gathered around a large table – each book was presented for discussion at the end of which a vote was made as to whether it would be held-over in a ‘for further consideration’ stack or not. The discussions enabled each judge to express their experience of the book, opinions about narrative, sequencing, design and typography, production values as well as how the books ‘fitted’ with the idea of the photo book. One interesting consideration was the suitability of the book’s format, design and structure as a container to hold and present the narrative.
Some of the other discussion points that emerged included:
- A trend which is emerging where the cover of the book has no photograph on it or minimal text to identify it;
- The absence of the author’s name on the cover of the book;
- The length of the book – many books the judges felt were just too long;
- The editing and sequencing of images – many judges felt that they’d like to have done a review of the book to give an opportunity for the great photos and story to be more effectively told;
- Texts within books need quality editing as well;
- Aspects of book size and binding – a concern was ‘whether the physical nature of the book gets in the way of its storytelling potential’;
- Design features that do not support the narrative; and
- Ethics in documentary photography in relation to what level of personal information about the subject is OK to disclose in a book.
As a result of this judging segment the 15 finalists were reduced to six books. These books were interrogated further with particular attention being paid to the expectation that a great photo book should create, as it is activated by the viewer/reader, a moment where the book’s design, photographs, texts, layout, sequencing all combine to express a powerful statement, narrative or emotional response.
Of these six books selected Heidi Romano was to comment that ‘they were equal to any of the world’s current great photo books’. One final review and discussion needed to follow to select the ultimate title winner. This was preceded with discussion regarding the message that awards like these make to the photo book community about what constitutes exemplary work. The participating judges recognized the importance of this aspect of the final award selection. Ultimately all of the books were given highly commended awards with Kelvin Skewes’ Nauru: What was taken and what was given being awarded the title of Runner Up. First prize was awarded to Raphaela Rosella’s We Met a Little Early But I Get to Love You Longer book. Although unpublished the book had been printed and bound by the Momento Pro team to the author’s specifications. It featured personal narratives written by young mothers, the design and page-turning/text sequencing, powerful imagery and the inclusion of personal notes and letters extended the story and loaded the emotional response potential for the viewer.
We Met a Little Early But I Get to Love You Longer Raphaela Rosella
Images and words from this book are available HERE: RAPHAELA_ROSELLA-We_met_Book
Nauru: What was taken and what was given Kelvin Skewes
The details of this book are available HERE
MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE BOOKS AND JUDGES COMMENTS ARE AVAILABLE HERE
The award winners receive:
Winner – $1,500 cash + $8,000 Momento Pro credit
Runner Up – $1,500 Momento Pro credit
People’s Choice – $500 Momento Pro credit
An additional award will be the ‘peoples choice’ from votes received during the exhibition of the books at the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive at the Photo Book Melbourne event.
This award helps to define what great Australian photobooks can be is and has rewarded great Australian photobooks. Additionally it will continue to fuel commentary and debate around the nature of the practice in Australia and serve to extend interest in and recognition of the discipline and the practitioners of the discipline in Australia.
Doug Spowart
February 12, 2015
wotwedid 