I am a big fan of STEIDL books. They produce some of the finest photography books on the market. The multi-book sets “ The Democratic Forest “ and “ Los Alamos Revisited “ by William Eggleston are probably my favorites. A quick check shows that I own at least 12 Steidl Verlag books.
I follow Steidl on Twitter and recently they had a tweet offering a copy of their Steidl Magazine so I sent for a copy. It really is a nice promotional piece for their recently published books. The authors covered are Nan Goldin - The Other Side, Santu Mofokeng - Stories, Anastasia Samoylova - FloodZone, Mitch Epstein - Sunshine Hotel, Harf Zimmerman - The Sad Eyed Lady, Nadav Kander - The Meeting, and 3 short interviews with photographers. Also included is a short essay on book binding by Steidl.
Because of the interview with Mitch Epstein I went to one of my favorite independent book stores and picked up a copy of Sunshine Hotel. I have been a fan of Epstein’s work for quite some time and the article gave me the impetus to finally buy one of his books. Must say the marketing effort worked just like planned. It is a beautifully printed book with some of the strongest work that I have seen recently. Epstein’s work is is similar to other early color Fine Art Photographers who started in the early 1970’s. Strong composition and bold use of color is the trademark of these photographers.
I have always said that after you learn the basics of photography that the best way to get better is not to buy equipment but to buy quality books of photographers whose style that you are interested in. Study their work and figure out why the images work. Once you understand how someone else creates images it gives you a foundation for creating your own work.
Finally I would like to say thanks to Steidl. We are in a golden age for photography books and they are consistently producing some of the best looking books available. Just like it is better to look at a photograph as an actual print as opposed to viewing it on a computer screen it is more enjoyable to evaluate a book by looking at a printed sample. I hope the Steidl Magazine is a regular feature because I think many people would look forward to every issue.