The key thing about the photobook is that it is not simply a collection of images. It is a coherent sequenced set of photos expressing the thoughts and opinions of the photographer. For me if a photographer is simply reliant on the aesthetics of their work – on the strength of the single image – and has nothing to say, then they don’t have a book.
Jonathan Blaustein: Will you admit on the record that Arsenal Football Club is superior to Manchester United? Dewi Lewis: Never. Never. JB: Never? DL: Never. Why would I admit to something that isn’t true? JB: (laughing.) Of course. But what if I secretly
via A Photo Editor: http://aphotoeditor.com/2015/10/06/dewi-lewis-interview-part-1/
if you’re a photographer, and you publish a book, it will be deposited in that library, and then, in 200 or 300 years time, your great, great, great grandchildren can go along and ask to see a copy of that book. If you think of that longevity of the book, surely it’s worth photographers spending time getting it right.
I think sometimes things are raced through much too quickly. And very young photographers expect a book within a year or two of graduating.
NYT:
Dave Anderson says the photographs in the book, published in October by Dewi Lewis, came out of the affection he developed for the small town; he considers them largely sympathetic portrayals of the beauty he sees in life “close to the bone,” as he put it.
But many residents have responded with rancor, to Mr. Anderson directly, in online forums, and with phone calls to his Houston gallery. On her MySpace page Ashley Hammonds posted an essay she had written in response to the book. Some residents began using the title of the book as an epithet. On Kim McGriff’s MySpace page, Jessica Jaeger, 20, left a comment, part of which read: “Face it! You just aren’t that smeart! You should have been featured in the Rough Beauty book!” James McCullar, a 25-year-old Vidor resident, started a thread on the MySpace “Vidorians” group, where he referred to Mr. Anderson as “a joke just trying to make a dollar off our past.”
Here.