NOT NIIGATA featured on Flak Photo

Screen shot from flakphoto.com

Andy Adams at Flak Photo has started a 4-week feature of NOT NIIGATA. I finally Skped with Andy last night for 1.5 hours after being in email contact with him for a few years, it was nice to put a voice to a face to a blog.

If you don't know Flak, (which, after him telling me how many hits he gets each month, I would find hard to believe) please take this chance to add it to your daily ritual.

He will be featuring a new image from the NOT NIIGATA book each Saturday in November. It will also be augmented with interviews and other links which we find.

Most importantly, I would like to thank everyone who has purchased a Special Edition of the book, you really made it possible by committing before the book was even produced. There are still a few left out of the edition of 100. It is a "print of choice" so you can select from any one of the 36 images in the book. A 30x40 cm color print plus book for 130,- Euro. You can read more info here.

If you want to read a bit about my travels and work in Japan from earlier this year, please visit the tag JAPAN.

Farewell and Lozen(up) - pocket sized treats

I got 2 packages in the mail today, one an old friend, one a new flirt.

Like old friends, I received the 2 newest books from FAREWELL books, Sensation from Noriko Takazawa and Even Your Ears from Kim Hyunjin. Both are expected continuations of the simple yet consistent form that Farewell always seems to maintain- clean, poetic, and again completely free of text and description, cryptic at times, as the language of photography can be when left to its own devices. They seem so much bigger than they actually are, and they will be a different book each time you view them. Very open and not closed, if that makes any sense.

Farewell is one of the publishers where it seems to make sense to have them all (I know that sounds like a sales pitch, but it isn't), and the titles are so affordable, it may be a possibility for most of us.

Noriko Takazawa. Sensation

Kim Hyunjin. Even Your Ears

The new flirt comes from Laurence Vecten, who some you may know her from her blog LOZ. She has just now released his first title as publisher of Lozen (up) and it is a collection of 100 floral images from Louis Porter. Louis Porter is an Australian based photographer who spent the summer of 2008 photographing the installment of literally hundreds of flower displays in and around Beijing leading up to the Olympics.

It is limited to 100 copies, so this might be the chance to start at complete collection of the LOZ books, we shall see where they go from here, but the fact that there are 2 metal "hooks" mounted in the binding, one can't help but think it is the beginning of a larger series, somewhere down the line we will get the offer for a binder to hold them all.

Louis Porter. One Hundred Flowers

You can get the specs at the respective sites.

Christian Patterson - limited edition prints

Christian Patterson is offering a selection of prints from his new work OUT THERE.

photos copyright Christian Patterson, 2009

I have had the privelage of a slightly deeper look into the work and I am really looking forward to what shall surely find it's way into a book form. His Sound Affects book recieved well-deserved praise internationally.

The OUT THERE prints are:

8 x 10 inch archival pigment prints
Signed and numbered
Limited edition of 20
$200

There are several to choose from, so take a look here.

Christian is also one of the members of the newly founded U.S. branch of Piece of Cake, POC, so you can keep up with him there as well.

Shane Lavalette - Print offer

There are a few days left to get a limited edition print from Shane Lavalette.

Shane Lavalette, 2009

Boy on Bike, Vrindavan, India, 2009
from “Waking Vrindavan”
8 x 10 in. / 20.3 x 25.4 cm
Archival Pigment Print
Edition of 30, SIGNED
$150 + S&H (includes insurance)

"To give back, 15% of the proceeds from each sale will be donated to Food for Life Vrindavan, a wonderful association that supports education and food distribution, among other things, in Vrindavan, India."

Order them here.

Coley Brown, Patrick Tsai - Growing Up

Photos by Coley Brown and Patrick Tsai

Coley Brown and Patrick Tsai
Growing Up - limited edition book/zine

This is another Gottlund Verlag publication of the work of Coley Brown, this time he is joined by Patrick Tsai. Coley's first book, Jam-Jelly-Honey-Wild Rice was on my favorits list last year. A similair visual diary, this one from Japan, focuses on kids and the quirkiness surrounding growing up.

32 pages

11 x 15 inches

Tabloid format

12$ in the US, 20$ elsewhere.

get them from Coley's site, or at Gottlund.

Markus Krottendorfer - Stock Car

Markus Krottendorfer, courtesy of Fotohof.

Markus Krottendorfer

Stock Car - not so limited book.

This isn't such a limited edition book, 1000 copies to be exact, but I found it interesting and I am always attracted to projects which I think have found the perfect form. This is a hefty soft-bound brick that reminds me of the big service guides we used to have in auto-shop class in high school which you had to get off the shelf and find a sturdy surface to flop it open to find out how to break down a distributor.

The book contains 120 black and white photographs of Stock Car (you have to write that word BOLD) races in England. The cars are all modified from their original stock condition, often deformed and covered in flashy stickers as they race, fly and crash around make-shift courses. Markus Krottendorfer also includes scenes before and after the races, the macho stances in the pit-boxes, the mechanics, the polished hoods being shined and ready for the next beating.

The full-bleed, double page printing mirrors this work's original form of a slide show. The cars and their heros seem to emerge from with-in, stepping into the stage lights for a brief brush with fame and death.

File this one somewhere between Valerie Belin and Weegee

Text: David Staretz
German and English
27 x 20 cm
39.00 €

You can find more info here.

Natascha Libbert - Take Me to the Hilton

Natascha Libbert

Take Me to the Hilton - Limited Edition book, 2009

Oh, the Dutch. They have to make the rest of us seem so normal with their constant output of fresh, subtle design. When it also comes together with some good photography, then we end up with something that just feels right, like this magazine/catalogue from Natascha Libbert.

Natascha became a part-time flight attendant to help support a return to school and this work in 11 cities, from Florida to Tanzania seems to be a reaction to that timeless, placeless void that anyone feels when crossing time-zones, social structures and cultures. We then find ourselves in yet another hotel room where enough effort has gone into trying to even-out the local flavor to a point where we ask ourselves if we have ever left home.

This is a story about man’s attempt to model his surroundings to become that which he envisions as being an ideal world. It is about how a created world has become reality. I perceived this to be especially visible in places such as hotels, airports, lounges, avenues, resorts by the sea. These places seem to present man with a truth which may be difficult to live up to. Details, both subtle and paramount, can be read in the understandable attempt of man to maintain this created decor and himself in it. In the end, what remains is the undercurrent of man’s alienated relationship to the world he created, a feeling of estrangement. This is what I observe as I travel. It is what this story is about.

NL

Edit and design : Renate Boere ( and Natascha Libbert)
with an essay from Jurriaan van Kranendonk
Limited to 300 copies
56 pages
English / Dutch
25,- euro (excl. shipping)

It is sold through

Liefhertje en de Grote Witte Reus Gallery(The Hague),

FOAM museum (Amsterdam),

Nederlands Fotomuseum(Rotterdam),

Fotomuseum Den Haag

and Photo-Eye in the US.

Her work also represents Holland in The Exposure Project.