The Problem With Photo Books

  The majority of photo books only give you a very small glimpse of a photographers body of work. A greatest hits kind of thing that irritates the hell out of me. Today it's gotten even worse because of shorter attention spans and just plain laziness. Who says you have to go through an entire photo book in one sitting, or two, or even three? Do you read an entire book at once? So why should photography or any art book for that matter be different? I wouldn't care if it took me a month to go through a massive book.

  In 1955 Eugene Smith was tasked with taking 100 photos for a book on Pittsburgh but Smith's dedication produced a body of work far greater which scared and angered everyone from the person who hired him to Life magazine and even book publishers. The source of this uneasy feeling is that Smith took over 10,000 photos! It took until 2003 for a Pittsburgh Project book to be published, a long while after Smith's death in 1978. The book features 175 photos but for me it's incomplete. When I look at a photographers body of work I'm not just interested in what some consider their greatest hits. I'm interested in everything in between too, and who is to say they best work at least to me isn't shown in the book. The Pittsburgh Project should be a series of books, almost like a set of encyclopedias. Given that Smith is considered by many to be the greatest documentary photographer there are most likely a couple thousand good photos in that project. Even my father told me when I was a kid that "Gene Smith is the only photographer in America who is worth a damn". Not only was Smith a great photographer his was also a great darkroom printer. One day, hopefully before my own demise I would like to see a set of books featuring 3000 photos or more from this body of work and wouldn't care if it took me 6 months to go through every page. After all what's the rush.