I heard from Keith F. Davis this morning, who wanted me to pass along the following regarding his 2012 book published by Nelson-Atkins, The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker (one of my favorite books of the last two years, by the way. It's the one to have if you have only one of Ray Metzker's books).
"I appreciate the interest in our Metzker book, and regret the fact that it went out of print so quickly. That's 'nice' of course, in the sense that it was received so well. I honestly thought that our press run was appropriate for the overall market, but clearly I guessed wrong. We are not contemplating any reprint at this time. My philosophy is that we've made that original statement, and new energy (and money) are best put into new projects. That's not written in stone, but....
"That said, I have made an inquiry and have found that our museum bookstore has a stash of a few dozen new copies, with a special in-house price much below the current out-of-print prices [currently $184 and up for a used copy and $290 and up for new copies —Ed.]. I invite anyone here to contact our bookstore director, John Hamann, directly on this matter. His email is [they are sold out now —Ed.]. I do appreciate this interest in our book, and hope this helps."
I assume it's first-come, first-served on those "few dozen" remaining books, so act fast if you want one.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
Chas: "Got a phone call from the Nelson-Atkins early this afternoon saying that I got the last of the 49 copies in the stash! Yay!!"
Photographs may be infinitely reproducible, and that may be a virtue or a drawback for the medium, but I, for one, am tired of the scarcity of desirable photo books.
Thanks for the tip, though. Email sent, fingers crossed.
Posted by: GRJ | Friday, 17 October 2014 at 01:59 PM
Absolutely grab these while you can! It's an excellent catalog of the show and a very good retrospective reference.
With all respect to Keith, my own personal favorite volume of Metzker's work is William Ewing's Ray Metzker: Light Lines. But it, too, is long out of print and has become very expensive on the secondary market. Even so, I'd forgo buying a new camera or lens in favor of grabbing a new/fine copy of Light Lines!
Posted by: Kenneth Tanaka | Friday, 17 October 2014 at 02:18 PM
I got one when it first came out on Mike's recommendation. Couldn't recommend it more myself now.
Posted by: V. Roma | Friday, 17 October 2014 at 04:08 PM
Emailed the email above. Fingers crossed.
Posted by: Ilya | Tuesday, 21 October 2014 at 08:30 PM
Mike, you say "It's the one to have if you have only one of Ray Metzker's books". It would be helpful - and a topic worthy of TOP - if you enlarged on that. Especially seeing that this source of "The Photographs of ..." has dried up on discovery.
Posted by: Hendrik | Wednesday, 22 October 2014 at 10:46 AM