Two Photography Books, One Light and One Heavy

This week's column by Ctein

Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity (second edition) by Michelle Bates. Focal Press, 2010.

Those of you with extraordinary memories will find this title familiar. I reviewed Plastic Cameras: Toying With Creativity nearly six years ago. Michelle recently informed me that the second edition is out (in fact, it came out three years ago) and this review picks up from the first one. So, if you would start with that one, please...(don't worry, I'll wait for you).

Holga photograph of Michelle Bates on Mt. Pilchuck, Washington State

In a remarkable deviation from typical publisher practices, the second edition of this book is 48 pages longer than the first but priced exactly the same at $29.95 (though Amazon will, of course, sell it to you for less—$18.67 to be exact). Most of the additional pages are devoted to photographs; the chapter of portfolios is a dozen pages longer and all the chapters have many more photographs actually made with "plastic cameras" that show off artists' work as well as illustrate and exemplify the material in the text. The text itself is somewhat expanded, especially the addition of a chapter on alternative processes and presentations, but it's the additional artistic content that I think is the most valuable. I wished for more artwork in the book in my first review; that wish has been amply granted.

As always with second editions, the presentation is more polished and the content is updated. Those changes are modest. If you own the first edition of this book, you probably don't need the second. Unless, like me, you own the book primarily for the photographs, in which case you'll want the new edition.

If you don't own the first edition of the book, well then of course you'll want the second. If nothing else it will broaden your perspective on what talented photographers can do with seemingly limited equipment. I'm especially drawn to the in-camera panoramas.

That was the light book. Here comes the heavy one....

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Sylvie Pénichon, a conservator of photographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, teaching a workshop at the paper conservation lab at the Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa. Photo courtesy of The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

Twentieth-Century Color Photographs: Identification and Care, by Sylvie Pénichon. Getty Conservation Institute, 2013.

Chance favored me. I would never have known of this book had not Sylvie contacted me. She needed a couple of samples of print types (not, by the way, dye transfer) to include as illustrations in this grand opus. In return, I received a copy of this book. And I'm so glad I did!

A minor bit of confusion—the same book has been issued by two publishers under two different titles. Sylvie assures me the content is the same. I have the Getty Conservation Institute edition ($60.98) that's available in the U.S. The British edition published by Thames & Hudson is much cheaper there (£24.77, about $40) and has a different cover. That edition is also available from the Book Depository with free shipping worldwide for $53.16.

Either way, the title of this book is slightly incorrect. It actually begins with the (possibly) first true color photograph in 1848 and includes the many color print processes that were developed before the turn of the last century. From there it moves forward through all of "analog" color photography, chapter by chapter, organized by process. For example, Chapter Two is on additive color screen photographs, Chapter Three on pigment photographs, and Chapter Four on dye inbibition. The latter, of course, being near and dear to my heart as it includes the dye transfer process.

This book is impressively encyclopedic. Each chapter starts off with a timeline that maps out the duration of each of the media included in that chapter. When I open to the chapter on dye inbibition, I discover that dye transfer is only one of no less than 16 different processes introduced starting in 1880. Cibachrome fans may be surprised to learn that there were more than a dozen dye-destruction print processes out there, beginning in 1899.

Every type of printing process is well-described and in almost every case accompanied by excellent, high-quality illustrations that do a really good job of showing what those prints actually looked like. Accompanying magnified photographs of each print make clearly visible the identifying characteristics of that particular medium. The chapter on additive screen photographs closes with a beautiful identification flowchart accompanied by excellent photomicrographs of each medium's screen pattern.

The book is well-written, exquisitely researched, and an invaluable reference volume. Or, it's simply good reading for someone like me who's fascinated by the history of photographic processes and loves looking at photographs of them. Either way, it's a must-buy for the photographic scholar, connoissieur, or just plain devotee.

Ctein

Color devotee Ctein, who gets either light or heavy every week on Wednesdays, has written more than 300 columns for The Online Photographer.

©2013 by Ctein, all rights reserved

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Kenneth Tanaka: "And I am proud to add that Sylvie Pénichon will soon be joining the Art Institute of Chicago as the photography department's conservator, replacing the recently retired Doug Severson. Purely coincidentally I happened to first glimpse Ms. Pénichon's book late last week. It looks terrific. (It's only about the size of a typical Photoshop how-to book.) I'd better study up. She might ask questions."

Nigel: "'The British edition...is much cheaper' I celebrated that unusual statement by ordering a copy. :-b "

Mike adds: Yes, it is unusual, and especially since you'd think the Getty, being one of the world's most heavily endowed art institutions, could subsidize its publications somewhat. I know it has done so in some cases in the past.

Comments

[David Brown]

This book is no doubt related to this exhibition at the Carter: http://www.cartermuseum.org/exhibitions/color-american-photography-transformed

[Christine Bogan]

Both books are very nice recommendations as christmas gifts. The first one for my niece because she is in a group of young people who get bored by all the clean digital images these days. One of the Lomo cameras is with her very often.For them film is superior and much more interesting (at the moment). The second book for me. Since I own both editions of Cteins excellent books about Digital restoration I got more and more interested in these old photographs lying around in my familys archives. In between the most of these photos got a better home to stay alive for a longer period. I collected more of them and found out who is who in these archives. But there are more black and white pictures than colored. The old colored ones are in very bad condition and are faded . Restoration is more difficult for me because I started photography in black and white and have no idea how they looked like in the 60s or earlier. Might be very interesting to read about.

[Kevin Purcell]

Is there any difference in reprodution quality between the US and UK editions of Twentieth-Century Color Photographs: Identification and Care?

I presume they are printed by different printers (but perhaps not?).

[John Robison]

I had forgotten about your first edition review (6 years is a long time) but it was a hoot to read. Myself, well I'm cross platform telented. I can take just as bad a picture with a thousand dollar camera as with a ten dollar camera.

[Timprov]

Is the Pénichon sufficiently detailed about the printing process itself that it would be useful to someone writing a series of historical middle-grade novels about a photo-printer? The research for this thing is rather painful.

[ctein]

Dear Kevin,

I've only got the US edition, so I forwarded your question to Sylvie. If she's got both editions in hand, presumably she'll get back to me (or you) with an answer.

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Dear Timprov,

She lays out the steps for most processes, but you'd have to know all the details of the craft yourself. It'd be useful, I think, but you couldn't write a credible scene based on her descriptions.

pax / Ctein

[ctein]

Dear Kevin,

This back from Sylvie:

"The printing quality and the paper are very similar; both were printed in China but I don't know if it was the same printer. T&H has a HC, Getty has a soft one. I hope this helps."

Which, to my mind, makes the T&H edition definitely the better deal.

pax / Ctein