The Online Photographer

My old book stand is an antique—I inherited
it—but here's something similar.

Our current book sale is ending soon. Sorry, I should set that off for emphasis—

BOOK SALE IS ENDING SOON!

The fire-sale price is only $32.50 for brand new, unread copies of Keith Davis's excellent The Origins of American Photography. It won't be the last opportunity to own the book, but it's probably the last time you'll be able to order a new copy easily, and for so little.

It's not too late. To order, go to this link and then enter the code "12555" at checkout. (Note that the discount doesn't show up until the last screen.)

Get it while you can! (Did I miss my calling as a marketer? My son is just about to graduate from the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh with a degree in marketing, and I'm near to busting with pride that he's accepted a very good job at a very good salary with a major corporation. He's a comer. Raised by hand, he was.)

I think of certain histories as being the foundation of my library. The two-volume set of Keith's An American Century of Photography and the present volume—telling the story of photography in America from its beginnings to approximately the year 2000—is one of those foundation-stones.

Guys with guns

This book covers less time than the other volume, but just as much change. The 19th century in America was tumultuous and fractious. Think about it: this book covers the Civil War, the building of the railroads, waves of immigration, and the exploration of the Wild West.

There's something elemental about the deliberateness of early portraits.

I've noted before that you don't actually have to read books like this to get a lot of out them. This is a large, thick, heavy book, with copious amounts of illustrations, and the repro quality is very good. You can enjoy it just as a picture book, paging slowly through it and savoring its curated collection of hundreds of fine historical images.

I use the word "curated" advisedly—Keith Davis's own origins were as a connoisseur. He was the curator in charge of putting together the Hallmark Collection, one of the major photography collections in America and in the World. (Someday I will get to Kansas City and write up my visit for you.) He has a great eye for photographs, something that can't quite be said for every museum curator out there.

The opening of the West falls within the time period covered

A feature of both books is that the illustrations are not just "the usual suspects." Lots of photography books are put together, let's just say, a little more cynically—the authors are book-aggregators hired by publishers to churn out coffee-table volumes for stocking bookstores. Not so here. Keith deliberately made the decision to mix well-known images with lesser-known ones. As an example, I have a number of volumes in my library about Daguerreotypes (I'm not exactly certain why, except that when you buy books, sometimes you just get started down a particular trail and it becomes self-perpetuating—I have a poet friend who found himself collecting volumes of Dante that way, despite not having a particular interest in Dante. But I digress.) Anyway, I'm familiar with a lot of Daguerreotypes, and this book has a lot of them that I've never seen.

A book for readers as well

I don't mean to short the text! Keith is an excellent writer, and the text is erudite but accessible, meant to be read, and able to be read with pleasure. And this isn't just a picture book with an essay or two at the beginning to underpin the pictures with a little intellectual weight—the text is generous and runs throughout the volume.

A wonderful earlier book is Photography and the American Scene by Robert Taft, reprinted by Dover and available as a free download. These books easily supersede that one, though.

I don't have a very current count, but I believe we've already sold around 300 copies. There should be plenty left, so if you'd like to Tweet this, or mention it on other forums you visit, or put it out there on other photography websites, please do. (For one thing, TOP gets a little cut, and every little cent [the United States doesn't actually have coin called a "penny," did you know that?] will go toward my new computer. I seriously need a new computer...it took fifteen minutes to get this one started this morning, and that handwriting is very much on that wall.)

How to order: go to the book page at the Nelson-Atkins Museum bookstore and then enter the special discount code "12555" at checkout. If you have any problems for any reason, let me know and I'll pass your email along to the bookstore staff, and they can help you.

If you already ordered, shipments begin Monday (November 14th). So if you order now you'll get yours before very long.

I think you'll like this! Hope you do.

Thanks again to Keith and the good folks at the Nelson-Atkins Museum for making this possible.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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As a matched pair, the very best history of American photography

Here we go! Last February we hosted a very large book sale—of a very large book—for Keith F. Davis, the noted author, photo historian, and Senior Curator of Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. The book was the magnificent An American Century of Photography: from Dry-Plate to Digital, a literally weighty tome which covers American photography from 1885 to the recent turn of the millennium.

On offer now is the companion volume to that book, Origins of American Photography: from Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, covering its subject from the pioneering generation up to 1885, the point at which the second book begins.

Although it is a companion book, completing the other, it's perfectly enjoyable as a stand-alone single title about the rich and riotous early days of photography in North America.

The book was originally published at $65, and was a fine bargain at that price. For a limited time, thanks to Keith and his associates at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, we are offering it here on TOP, exclusively, for 50% off—only $32.50. Note that these are all brand new books, not seconds, not used, and not shopworn.

How to Buy

To purchase yours, please go to this link and then enter the code "12555" at checkout to get our discount. Note that you can also get the same discount in person at the Museum as long as you know the code.

We're not "protecting" this information, so you're welcome to share it. However, there are fewer books available this time than last, so you might be well advised to order your copy before posting the link to big photo sites!

Domestic shipping is only $12.95. Unavoidably, international shipping is $100, same as last time*.

The sale will continue for 30 days or until the supply of books runs out, whichever comes first.

As I mentioned last time, although the text is uncommonly readable and engaging, the book is worth its price just as a picture book. It's loaded with illustrations, many of them unusual, and the reproduction quality is very high for this type of book. Just paging through it and enjoying the pictures is rewarding.

Hope you like! I just love Keith's books and have gotten a great deal of enjoyment from these, although (fortunately!) I'm nowhere near finished reading both of them. More pleasure awaits.

Mike
(Thanks to Keith Davis and the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and
Brian Day and his staff and helpers at the Museum Store)

*This will be disappointing to some readers so it bears a little explanation...the books are big and heavy, and the Museum Store is largely responsible for sales within the Museum itself...they normally do very little mail order and almost none to other countries. Groups of volunteers assist with packaging and mailing to the U.S., but shipments to other countries unfortunately require a lot of time and attention from staffers. Hence the high price.

If the Book Depository ships to your country, the overall price will be less for you if you order it there. I'm not sure how many books they have, however.

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Thomas J. Burleson: "Another winner, Mike; thanks for arranging it. All the previous books have been exceptionally useful in helping an assortment of aspiring young photographers of my acquaintance understand why cellphone cameras and Instagram are only a place to start. This book should help them understand how we got to this point."

John Camp: "Is the first book, An American Century of Photography: Dry Plate to Digital, still available?"

Mike replies: It was when you asked this question, but now it looks like it is not. At least from the Museum. You might still try the usual suspects, Amazon and the Book Depository. Or, if you can settle for a used copy, Abebooks.com or eBay > Books.

Peter Williams: "I know you live in the USA, but these books sales are pretty off-putting for your international readers."

Mike replies: We're a bit between a rock and a hard place. As I explained, that's just what it costs; the Museum doesn't want to lose money, which is reasonable. If they were set up for international shipping on a regular basis, I'm sure they could get the cost down drastically, but, as I've explained, they're not, because they don't ordinarily do any international shipping. On the other hand, if we refuse to sell to international readers altogether, it creates alienation—we've done that a few times in the past and the complaints can be bitter.

As antidote, consider that in numerous print sales, American readers have paid a little more in shipping than the actual cost so that international buyers can pay a little less than their actual cost (whenever you see the same shipping cost for U.S. and overseas, that probably pertains), meaning that American buyers have subsidized international shipping somewhat in those cases.

I've given the best alternative I know of in the footnote above, and I apologize again that we can't level this particular playing field. But we can't.

Our next installment in presenting the work of the most excellent Keith F. Davis, curator and author extraordinaire and one of Yr. Hmbl. Ed.'s favorite writers on photography, begins next Tuesday. We will be offering a limited number of copies of The Origins of American Photography: From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, 1839-1885: The Hallmark Photographic Collection at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art at a greatly reduced price. They are brand new books, protected, pristine, never touched by human hands, found in long-sealed crates in the ancient skull-encrusted bone-dry catacombs far beneath the massive walls of the Museum.

Okay, that last bit is me getting carried away. But they are brand new, never read, and the price will be very, very nice.

The new sale starts next Tuesday.

The book can of course be read alone; it covers its time period comprehensively. However, it was conceived and written to form a matched set when paired with An American Century of Photography: From Dry Plate to Digital, which we offered for a discounted price last February. The two books together comprise the best and most complete current history of American photography to the end of the 20th century. Like An American Century, Origins is copiously and beautifully illustrated and written in a readable, engaging style.

There are fewer copies available of Origins, but enough that you won't need to order absolutely immediately. The sale will run for thirty days or until we run out of books, whichever comes first. Please check back on Tuesday for more information.

Mike
(Thanks as usual to Keith and all the good folks at the Museum)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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I'm very happy to announce that we will soon be hosting a sale of American photography curator Keith F. Davis's magnificent 2007 book The Origins of American Photography. The book is the companion volume to An American Century of Photography (1999) from our previous sale, and is similar to it in size, scope, and quality.

The full title is The Origins of American Photography: From Daguerreotype to Dry-Plate, 1839-1885: The Hallmark Photographic Collection at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. As soon as I got my copy of American Century, last Winter, I bought Origins from Amazon. The two make a matched set.

Like last time, the price will be very low and an extremely good value. We will be selling brand new books, surplus from the Museum Store's stock in storage.

I've very pleased about this. These two books together comprise the most thorough and up-to-date history of American photography, with a very readable text and copious amounts of outstanding illustrations. More news as I have it.

See you Monday! Have a nice weekend—and take some pictures if you can.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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I wonder if I could ask for your help. I know that most TOP readers regularly visit other photo-related websites and forums, and in many cases spend more time there than you might here, since we don't run a forum.

 Our current "Four Book Photobook Sale" ends in three days—Saturday is the last day.

If you wouldn't mind, would you please mention the sale on any other photo sites you know of that might have readers who would be interested?

The sale has been very popular and a big success—TOP readers have so far purchased more than 2,000 books all counted. However, we have more than 200 sets left, and the sad thing is, this is the last chance to find those books good homes.

(Plus, TOP gets $6 per set, and frankly I could really use the money. Every purchase supports the site.)

Would you please help spread the word? Here's a quick link to this post:

http://tinyurl.com/hkjsjgs

...Please pass it along.

The four books are:

Clarence John Laughlin: Visionary Photographer (1990)

Todd Webb: Photographs of New York and Paris 1945–1960 (1986)

George N. Barnard: Photographer of the Sherman Campaign (1990)

The Photographs of Dorothea Lange (1995)

Marked down from $165 to $48.

Here's the order page; to get the discount,
enter the code 175212 at checkout.

And if you meant to order yourself but haven't yet, please don't put it off much longer. Saturday is the last chance.

Clarence John Laughlin's images are lush, rich large format, wonderful to look at for their technical beauty, but far from "straight." He played with photography in many ways: ripped pictures, double exposures, extreme angles. Many of the pictures seem to touch on the spiritual or give a glimpse of the occult; he makes the spookiness of old things come alive. He came close to catching ghosts—a face where you least expect it, a ghostly hand in a ruin. The pictures contain secrets. I enjoyed getting reacquainted with this strange, spooky book.

If you can help out, grateful thanks!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Tim Auger: "If I could find a cheap way to get them shipped to Singapore or London I would order like a shot. Otherwise prohibitive."

Mike replies: Sorry again about that. The Museum Shop sells very little through its website (mostly they stock the shop inside the Museum) and just isn't set up for efficient international shipping, of which they normally do almost none. Each international order requires a lot of special handling by the staff. Although it might sound self-serving to say so, actually they were quite accommodating to offer international shipping at all. They really did it as a favor to me, I suspect.

Bryce Lee: "Are there any other photo sites as engaging as The Online Photographer? Tell me where...."

Mike adds: Bryce has been a big supporter of TOP for many years and has made many donations to help keep the enterprise afloat. Always grateful, Bryce.  :-)

Wayne: "In my opinion, the George Barnard book, alone, is worth the money. Aside from having great photographs, it is a well written account of photographic history related to Barnard's time. It is rare that I read much of the text in book on a photographer's life; but, the Barnard book sucked me right in."

David Bostedo: "I'll add that I bought the set for the Dorothea Lange, but the Todd Webb book is unexpectedly terrific!!"

Our current book sale is still going on...four NOS photobooks. "NOS" means "new old stock," meaning published some time ago but brand new copies. The four books cost $165, but if you enter the code 175212 at checkout, you can get all four for $48. Here's the link.

Packages are already arriving at peoples' houses. Reader Mike Plews sent me this the other day, to let me know his box had arrived:

[Note: The earliest shipments have just started to be delivered. If you haven't received yours, it's not time to worry yet. —M.]

I asked Mike how he liked the Laughlin title in particular, and this is what he said (don't miss the video Mike found, linked at the end, which contains a nice little thumbnail bio of C.J.L.)....

"Since it's way too hot to work outside I spent the morning paging through my new books. It's interesting to revisit an artist in your sixties that you first encountered in your late twenties. When I first became familiar with Laughlin I was deep into my "Jeez I sure wish I was Ansel Adams" period so I didn't fully appreciate what he was doing. I also have to confess that occasionally I got him mixed up with Ralph Eugene Meatyard, oops.

"After this morning I have to say that I like Laughlin's work a lot more than I did back then. The clearly staged images and the multiple exposures are rather timely given the recent discussions on TOP on manipulated images. For the record I like them a lot. The Laughlin book also dovetails nicely with the Barnard volume. Spanish Moss and wreckage everywhere.

"One reason I might be more receptive to these two books stems from a life change a few years ago that had Mrs. Plews and I going to Savannah four times in a couple of years. On the first visit my son took me to Bonaventure cemetery saying 'Dad, you gotta see this, you'll just go nuts,' and I did. If there ever was a place that screamed 'turn off the color,' this is it. I regard moments like this as permissible guilty pleasures. It isn't your place, you really don't know it and you aren't trying for anything like art so you can just let go and let it fly. The place is kind of a photographers' theme park, and you get to pay your respects to Johnny Mercer. What could be more fun?

"Now this may feel like a stretch and you can chalk it up to heat stroke but here goes. Paging through the Laughlin book sent me downstairs to pull out Sonja Bullaty's wonderful book on Josef Sudek. These guys feel like spirit brothers to me but I have been out in the sun.

"You may find it interesting that in 2013 a couple of Laughlin prints turned up on "Antiques Roadshow." Here's a link.

"Well that's my take on my new book. I am really enjoying the Hallmark Photo Book Club so far. Thanks for pulling this together."

The man in the "Antiques Roadshow" video talks about being friends with the photographer's son, John Laughlin, and says that John was the source of the prints they are discussing on the show. In the "Life's Little Coincidences" department, I used to work with John Laughlin, years ago, at a garden center in Washington, D.C.

We still do have book sets left! The sale lasts until July 2 or thereabouts. I'm looking forward to hearing how you like them.

Mike
(Thanks to Mike P.)

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Darlene: "TOP is the only place I know of where you can participate in a garage sale with a museum selling photography books. These will find a home in my classroom, thanks Mike. Thanks also to Mike Plews for the visual that threw me into the shopping cart.  :-) "

As promised, in cooperation with the Nelson-Atkins Museum, TOP is today offering a package of four wonderful older photobooks by eminent curator and author Keith F. Davis for a single low price. Here's the link—to get the sale price exclusive to TOP, enter the code 175212.

The books
For $48 plus shipping, you'll receive four of Keith's books:

Clarence John Laughlin: Visionary Photographer (1990)

Todd Webb: Photographs of New York and Paris 1945–1960 (1986)

George N. Barnard: Photographer of the Sherman Campaign (1990)

The Photographs of Dorothea Lange (1995)

In addition, the first several hundred orders will receive, as a free bonus:

The Passionate Observer: Photographs by Carl Van Vechten (1993)

Three strong wins
All these books enjoyed successful runs in print, and at this point what Keith and the Museum are trying to do is put the remaining books in the hands of people who will enjoy and appreciate them. And TOP gets a few dollars from each sale. So this whole project is a win/win/win for them, me, and you.

Details

Supply: We have fewer books than last time, but still a good supply, so you won't miss out if you can't order immediately. However only the first several hundred orders will receive the fifth title, and there's a caveat regarding hardcover and softcover that I've explained several times and will explain again below.

Shipping: Domestic shipping is $15.95. Overseas shipping is available but expensive at $100. There's no help for this; books are heavy, and four (or five) books are heavier than one. Do note that the cost even with international shipping is still lower than the price the Museum has been selling these books for regularly, and lower than the cover prices of the books when they were new back in the 1990s. (They'd cost more if published now.) So, still not a bad deal.

Packaging: Last time we got some complaints about the packaging (although we had few actual problems), so this time the books will be wrapped in bubble wrap and encased in a stout lidded box for shipping. Big thanks to Brian and the corps of Museum volunteers who will be working hard on the shipping fulfillment!

The books themselves: I'll be posting more about each book in the days/weeks to come. The Barnard is the definitive title on him and a must-have for anyone interested in the Civil War; the Lange is (in my opinion) the best single-volume overview of her career, "the one to have if you have only one"; and my surprise favorite is the Laughlin, which I knew from when it was new but have really only appreciated for the first time since my sample copy arrived here this Spring. He's not a straight photographer, so it's possible his moment is here right now.

Note that Keith Davis is very, very good (gifted, I think, and I'm pretty good at it too) at the basic bedrock task of curation: picking which pictures to show, and in what sequence. There's a "rightness" to these presentations that accentuates the pleasure of looking at these books.

Duration: The sale lasts for one month or while supplies last.

Value and varying interest: My feeling, having seen and happily perused all the books is that this is a nice buy if you're interested in at least two of the titles. And you might find, like I did, that you'll be surprised by one or more of the others, too, and like it more than you thought, so there's that possibility too.

Hardcover/paperback: One book exists only in hardcover, two others (including the bonus book) only in soft, but for two of the books there's a mixed supply of hardcover and softcover copies. We'll fulfill orders with hardcovers until they run out and then start sending softcovers. There's nothing wrong with a paperback book but hardcovers are kinda nice too. The one you really want in hardcover is the Lange, and that's all the Museum has, so that's what you'll get, for sure.

Not a secret: The sale isn't a secret, so feel free to post the link and order code to other photographic communities you frequent.

Here it is again: order at this link and use the code 175212 at checkout.

A lot of people at the Museum have worked hard on this, so big thanks to them! And thanks to all of you who ordered the book from our last cooperative book sale, too. The success of that sale inspired this one.

Mike
(Thanks most of all to Keith, who, although a down-to-earth sort of guy, is firmly ensconced in the pantheon of the medium's greatest curators.)

[UPDATE 3:37 p.m. Thursday: 241 sets sold so far, and 325 is the cutoff for the free fifth book.]

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Massoud biniaz: "Hi Mike, How do you know if you're going to receive the bonus book?"

Mike replies: You'll only know when your box comes.

The reason it's provided for free is so they wouldn't have to work out a mechanism to track it. If they were set up to tell you in advance whether you were going to get it it, they'd also be set up to charge extra for it.

rick barry: "All these books for $63.95 to my doorstep. Yippee! Can't wait. Thanks Mike and TOP. Mine are ordered."

Mike replies: I can't take much credit. Thank Keith...  :-)

Lenya: "Mike, why don't you revive the Photography book of the month club, so that members get a photography book chosen by you and a publisher at a discounted price every month or every two months? That would open some of our horizons, without breaking the bank. The Weston volume, and other books you had on sale may have built just enough trust in the TOP editor's taste to make this endeavor possible."

Mike replies: Hmmm....[seldom used neurons begin firing, rusty cogs begin turning....]

Our next book sale in cooperation with the Nelson-Atkins Museum will begin Thursday, June 2, at 11 am Eastern U.S. Time.

We will be offering four brand new photography books that are "new old stock" (NOS) and have been in storage at the Museum. The price for all four is $48.

The first 325 orders will receive an extra book (i.e., different title) for free. This is the only way we could handle the fact that we have fewer copies of that book, while still offering the whole package for one price.

Speaking of the "package," responding to concerns last time about the packaging, this time the books will be wrapped in bubble wrap inside a stout box.

Two of the other books exist in varying proportions of hardcover/softcover. We will fulfill the orders with hardcover books until they run out, then switch to softcover.

International shipping will be possible, but very expensive. There's no help for this: photo books are big and heavy and the Museum does not do a lot of international shipping generally and thus doesn't enjoy economies of scale for that shipping. So the books won't be such a "deal" for our international readers but at least the books will be available to you if you really want them. Even with international shipping, the price will still be below what the Museum normally charges for these books and below the cumulative original selling prices.

The sale will run for one month or while supplies last. We have fewer copies than last time, but still enough that you won't miss out entirely if you don't order immediately.

A small portion of the each sale goes to TOP, so you're helping support this site with your purchase.

More information next Thursday at 11—please check back then!

(And hope you have a nice Saturday.)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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