Some self- or independently published photobooks from 2010
As the year draws to an end and more top-10 lists (and non-lists) than you can wave a stick at make their annual appearance, I thought I would take a broader look back at the past year in photography. This time last year I focused on the chronic over-use of the word curating, a trend which shows no signs of abating. As for 2010, the major development in the world of photography has to be the exponential rise of the self-published and independent photobook.
Review: Adriaan van der Ploeg, Mont Purgatoire
After Mariken Wessels‘ two mysterious tomes (one of which was reviewed here) which seemed to make most ‘best of 2010′ photobook lists, our Dutch friends have done it again and produced a book which really should not exist. I couldn’t help but try to imagine this book idea being pitched to any halfway-sane book publisher, “I want to do a big, 150-page book of portraits of out-of-shape, middle-aged men who try to cycle up this mountain that most people have never heard of, but which has a cool name. The portraits will all be taken from the same head-on perspective with some kind of telephoto lens, they’ll be tightly cropped and really flat and even out of focus sometimes because they’re cycling up a mountain and the guys will all be sweating and in varying degrees of pain. Oh and as a bonus feature, I’ll throw in a promotional website with a background video of one of the cyclists throwing up on the side of the road while some other guys ride past him.” 99% of the time he would literally be escorted out of the building, possibly with a restraining order thrown in for good measure, and yet the good people of Habbekrats decided that there was some part of this project that was actually a good idea. The funny thing is that they were right.
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