Last winter my New Year's Resolution was to start a photograph collection—just start one—and the enterprise has gone somewhat better than expected. I have acquired some fifteen prints, and so far framed four of them, with several more in the queue for framing.
Many of the prints are pictures I originally featured on TOP, or that I found through TOP. To begin with I bought this print from Cosmin Bumbut in Romania (it took a while to track him down), which I had beautifully framed with an antique-looking beaded molding. Hanging in a place where I see it every day.
I traded Peter Turnley some prints for his workshop advertisement (in the left-hand sidebar), and thereby acquired several, including a beautiful Voja Mitrovic print of this picture. By the way, I don't know if you actually see the site (many people now read TOP through feeds), but there's a new ad under the Pentax ad at the top left—Peter's having his usual annual Holiday sale and offering all of the prints in his portfolio for not very much more than our Print Offer prints cost. So if you were one of the people who liked pictures of his we didn't offer—like the dude in wheelbarrow and the black cat—step right up.
Recently I discovered Laurent Gloaguen's Galerie du Cabestan in Montréal, thanks to a comment left by Ed Hawco. I featured one of his maritime reprints from old negatives in a "Random Excellence" post. My post led to a number of sales for Laurent, so he sent me a print of "Catboat Mary" as a thank-you. Laurent's work is very much in the spirit of TOP's own print offers—very high quality for very modest prices. I don't quite know how he can offer such beautiful prints, matted, carefully annotated, and beautifully packaged, for the prices he charges. Quite remarkable bargains. Anyway, I very much love his platinum "Catboat Mary," from a negative by John S. Johnston (no relation, except that we both probably have ancestors who hailed from the same patch of Scottish ground), which could almost have been taken on the lake where I grew up spending the summers.
From Mosaic Records I bought a modern open-edition inkjet print of this Francis Wolff picture of Sonny Clark. (I bought it before the price went up.) Not a collectable, really; like the Catboat picture, it just has the status of a modern reproduction. I'm a bit of a Sonny Clark nut. I love his the contrast between his plainspoken utter lack of flourish and his deep musical sophistication; I could listen to the guy comp. I do, actually—I collect recordings on which he was a sideman (the Wikipedia discography is by no means exhaustive—he played on Blue Serge, for Pete's sake). Unfortunately the print is not great—too light (often the hallmark of the inexperienced printer) and the tone in the piano keys is not held. I don't think I'll frame it because I'm not sure I can live with the print quality.
And what arrived in the mail the other day to my surprise but a very nicely-done inkjet print of this 1976 locomotive shot by Marcelo Guarini (the one in the Featured Comment of that post, naturally). He notes that it was taken at a very slow shutter speed, and so isn't completely sharp, and that what appear to be lighter streaks against the smoke was in fact heavy rain. A successful print regardless, and as usual I like the TOP connection.
Also just recently, I was especially pleased to finally consummate a long-discussed deal with Diane Bush for a print of this wonderful portrait of Milton Rogovin. Diane couldn't find the negative, but she eventually found a vintage print—one of two signed to her by Milton. The print arrived just the other day, in the most extravagant packing ever. It's just lovely, and I will treasure it.
She sold the print to me for $100, but I felt it was worth more so I sent her an extra $150. (It's worth more than that, too, but that's better than $100.) I think that makes it the most expensive print I've acquired so far. I like vintage 35mm work, and I do like pictures of photographers.
Diane will be having a show soon in the Las Vegas area called "True Brits." I wish I could see that.
Those aren't all fifteen, of course. For one thing—which I'm not overlooking—several readers also sent very nice prints as gifts, which was extremely kind.
But that gives you a taste.
And by the way, I think this is the first time I've ever truly kept a New Year's Resolution all through the year!
Mike
P.S. I haven't forgotten about Part II of the Kindle post, either. I just haven't written it yet.
"Open Mike" is a series of personal, off-topic, or light posts that appear only, but not always, on Sundays.
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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Inspired by your advice, I started a small collection too. My most favorite one this year is the Imogen and Adams print by Alan Ross: http://alanross.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/People/G0000jTdhUnfRnmc/I00003zyZUSJz9wE/P0000WefLVmEGWuw I just got it a few days ago and I love it. Adams looks like a garden gnome :-)
The two Turnley prints are awesome of course, and I am hoping that in Jan I will be able to get a Ctein large dye transfer print on volcanic rocks. Ctein, don't sell them out yet please :-)
Posted by: Richard Man | Sunday, 19 December 2010 at 07:23 PM
I don't know about resolutions, but thanks very much in part to you and the TOP offers my own meager print collection is up around 7 or 8.
I'm waiting to frame mine until I actually own a house :p
Posted by: Jamin | Sunday, 19 December 2010 at 07:47 PM
Do post info on the "true brits" show in Las Vegas. It's a do-able drive from here, and though my ability to stay in the city itself for very long is limited - gives me a headache - there's a spot called the Valley of Fire not far from there that has some wonderful sandstone formations...
Posted by: Steve G, Mendocino | Sunday, 19 December 2010 at 08:02 PM
Wow. The Galerie du Cabestan is amazing. We are accustomed to seeing faded and stained images from the 19th century, but there was nothing at all wrong with the negs.
I'll be buying some prints from them quickly, before they get smart and raise their prices.
Thanks, Mike.
Posted by: Paris | Sunday, 19 December 2010 at 11:00 PM
Another strong recommendation for 'The Victorian Internet'. It's a great read, about the social and economic impact of the telegraph in the mid 1800s, with many, many parallels to what we ourselves recently experienced with the spread of the internet in our times.
In other words? Networkz iz networkz.
Posted by: Mani Sitaraman | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 04:06 AM
I started one too, thanks to your post about Ed Buziak's amazing print sale. So far it's pretty small, and it will probably stay that way, as I plan to be very discriminating but buy prints that I want to see all the time and actually put them up in good mats and frames.
Posted by: MarcW | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 09:30 AM
MarcW,
I suspect my collection will stay small too, because I have limited wall space.
I remember stopping into an "open house" on Central Park South with a friend and being "gobsmacked" (as our British friends say) by the size of the rooms, the height of the ceilings and the vast area of the walls. When I asked why, the real estate agent informed me that wealthy buyers needed space for art. "Art is large," she said. (I think the condo was for sale for $3+ million, although that was the '80s and it would probably be a lot more now.) (This experience also accounted for one of the critical criteria with which I annoyed my art school friends: "Too small to be art.")
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 09:48 AM
Hello Mike --
I was wondering if you might please write up a paragraph or two about proper framing of one's photo print collection ?
Should a photo be matted ?
Should glass be used or is something like plexiglass OK ?
If I want to store some unframed prints, how ?
In an album ? In some kind of box ?
This would, I think, be most helpful for some of us who are very new to this whole print collection thing !
BTW, my print collection started with your wonderful Christmas House at Night.
This comment is not necessarily for publication as I simply wanted to offer a suggestion for a column that I would find very useful. Your call on displaying it.
Cheers -- Andrea B.
Posted by: Andrea B. | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 09:54 AM
Two big surprises today. The first and most rewarding one is having considered the locomotive print that I sent you as a part of your collection. The second one, you shoud have received the print in September, I sent it just two weeks after the Feautered Comment through one of the fast courier companies ???
Regards
Marcelo
Posted by: Marcelo Guarini | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 01:24 PM
This is just to say that I enjoy this post a lot - the photographs themselves, the way they and their contexts are discussed. It just makes me feel very good to see highly varied but very beautiful photography presented (and lived with!) in this way. Thank you, Mike - and may you please keep up the good work for a long time to come.
Hans
Posted by: Hans Muus | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 02:37 PM
Dear Mike,
You're not going to become a real collector, until you stop worrying about your wall space.
Seriously, that's a constant in the universe. Every art collector acquires more artwork than they have room to display, from the very modest lower-middle-class buyers to the ultra-rich. The richer you are, the bigger the place you can afford to live in… And the more artwork you can afford. Even the ultra rich, who build entire museums to house their collections, still don't build museums big enough to show all the collection at once.
This may sound like a bug, but it can be a feature. Nothing freshens up a living space more easily than hanging up new artwork. Faster and cheaper than redecorating or buying new furniture, and it's truly amazing the effect of having different work on the walls. So having a collection that you have to rotate (save for a few must-see favorite pieces) is not at all a bad thing.
pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
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Posted by: ctein | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 04:07 PM
Most of the art in our home was created by my wife, or by me. However, we have a nice little collection of photography from some known photographers, and some very nice photographs from friends whose work hangs very well right next to those famous people's stuff. Our new Turnley was a very nice expansion of our collection!
If I had to pick the work of one photographer that I would love to add to our collection, it is Ray McSavaney. Maybe someday.
Posted by: Dave Karp | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 04:12 PM
Ctein,
What you say is true. I grew up down the street from the home of a man, the father of a classmate, who owned a modestly famous (and evidently very lucrative) business that you might well have heard of. He had become rapidly very rich, and had gotten in the habit of buying treasures of various kinds (including, it was rumored, land that struck his fancy wherever he happened across it--so much land, and so far-flung, that his children believed he didn't know where it all was).
When the property on which he had his residence was as jam-packed as it could get, with a pool and a tennis court and a formal garden covering every square foot of yard, and a driveway full of cars, they moved to a much larger custom-made house on a much larger property, and so were not our neighbors any longer. But when they lived near me, in their dining room there were a number of paintings on the wall--and underneath each, in a stack four or five deep, were more paintings, resting on the floor, leaning against the wall. According to my classmate they were rotated on to the wall itself as his father's whim would have it--.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Monday, 20 December 2010 at 05:26 PM
My apologies if this is against your rules but your audience might appreciate the Fraction Magazine holiday print sale as a place to buy some great photography, as almost of the prints are under $100
http://www.fractionmagazine.com/holiday-print-sale/
Happy Holidays,
david bram
Posted by: david bram | Tuesday, 21 December 2010 at 12:51 AM
Thank you for letting Mr. Bram's post go up. Some of those photos are amazing.
Posted by: MarcW | Tuesday, 21 December 2010 at 09:55 AM