Encounter Studio: experiments + journeys

brief notes on experimental photographic journeys

Abstract Photography book launched

At the opening of the Abstraction x 5 exhibition, which includes abstractions by   Graeme Hastwell, Beverley Southcott, Stuart Murdoch,  Adam Dutkiewicz and myself,  we launched the Abstract Photography  book. The exhibition and launch was yesterday  at the Light Gallery in Adelaide to a full house.  

The  book was written  by Dutkiewicz and myself, and it recovers the lost modernist abstractions made in the 1960s by Adelaide photographers, has a couple of essays by Adam and myself and a number of  abstract photographic  images by Adam  and myself. 

The full title of the book is Abstract Photography: Re-Evaluating Visual Poetics in Australian Modernism and Contemporary Practice, and it was published by  Moon Arrow Press. It was the  lo-fi version--the artist proof of concept--- was launched. The general reaction was that the history, text and contemporary  images in the book hung together well to form a cohesive whole. We'd got there. 


We plan to have different price levels reflecting different print quality  for  the various market segments.This requires Adam and myself to check out different printers, locally and overseas, to see what they have to offer.  It's really a question of balancing  the quality and  the cost.  
 Balancing because I am not sure the digital printing quality is there to produce good quality for around $40-$50 a book. At the moment good quality means $80-$90 a book, which is far too expensive. Only a few people will  pay that price. 
The book printing is largely a work in progress for Adam and myself. We are trying to find a way of printing the books that we are happy with.  In launching the book we  become part of the contemporary shift away from the print or exhibition towards the book as the central medium for photography. 

There is a notable expansion in the activities of self-publication and the use of small independent press by photographers and artists who use the photograph in contemporary art photography. The reason  for this  shift  has  primarily to do with keeping control of your creative vision and being able to operate outside the often prohibitively costly mainstream publishing houses.