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Lillian Bassman
Review by Carole Glauber, copyright 2001Lillian Bassman, photographs by Lillian Bassman; Essay by Martin Harrison, A Bulfinch Press Book, Little, Brown and Company, 1997.
At the turn of the century, a schism existed between commercial photographers who earned a living making photographs, and the creative purity of the amateur artistic photographer. Many amateur photographers like Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, or Anne Brigman believed in aesthetic independence from the constraints of earning money from their photographs. After World War I, Steichen abandoned this divide by publishing artificially lighted cubist and art deco designed fashion photographs.
By the 1920's and 1930's, commercial photography and art had cemented their relationship in new formats seen in elegant magazines such as Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. A new breed of fashion photographers mastered lighting techniques combined with props, sophisticated environments, and glamorous models. Sir Cecil Beaton, Horst P. Horst, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Louise Dahl-Wolfe contributed to the new fashion medium, often studying under Alexy Brodovitch, the art director of Harper's Bazaar from 1938 to 1958.
It was under Brodovitch's tutelage in 1941 that Lillian Bassman learned the trade of magazine art director, later becoming his first salaried assistant.
In 1944, she was appointed art director of Hearst's Junior Bazaar. Two years later, she decided to learn photography and spent hours at Harper's Bazaar mastering printing in George Hoyningen-Huene's darkroom. She and her husband, photographer Paul Himmel befriended the Avedons, and Richard Avedon loaned her his studio while he was in Paris. She photographed a model in lingerie, who liked the photo enough to show it to her advertising executive husband. Overnight, after only two months as a photographer, Bassman acquired a major account and a regular job with Harper's Bazaar. In 1949, she photographed her first Paris collection for the magazine, Richard Avedon threw a huge party in honor of the occasion, and she began photographing the leading models of the day.
The reproductions in Lillian Bassman, with an essay by photography historian and curator, Martin Harrison, convey the sensual, feminine, romantic style evoked in her work. Bassman did not always rely on beautiful models and clothes as the essence of her photographs. In the darkroom, she experimented with printing through gauze, tissue, careful ‘burning in' on certain image areas, and bleaching sections with ferrocyanide, to create an image that resembled a cross between a water color and a photograph. Most images reproduced in the book were "reinterpreted," (defined as contemporary reprinting of the original image after manipulation by Lillian Bassman) in 1994, but examples of her original magazine page layouts are included, giving us a faithful depiction of her success. Her imagery ranges from the casually elegant to blurry and grainy, but gesture, intimacy, and refinement are characteristically present on every page.
Lillian Bassman was born in Brooklyn, New York on June 15, 1917, the second child of Russian immigrant parents who had experimented with farming in New Haven, Connecticut with a group of bohemian Jewish intellectuals. When she was sixteen, she wore unconventional Russian capes, long earrings, low-cut peasant blouses, and jodhpurs. She modeled for artists in the WPA (Works Progress Administration), dabbled in painting and textile design, was arrested and booked under the pseudonym "Rosa Bonheur" after a political protest, and married Paul Himmel after twelve years of living together. They had two children, Eric and Lizzie. Then came her success at Harper's Bazaar and her work as a photographer until 1971 when she and Himmel formally closed their photography studio, although she continued her personal photographic projects.
Evidently, her studio closing prompted Bassman to "discard" garbage bags of negatives discovered 20 years later by her downstairs neighbor, painter Helen Frankenthaler, according to one version of the story. Author Martin Harrison, visiting from London, encouraged her to resurrect them, much to the benefit of us all.
Lillian Bassman can now enjoy the renewal of interest in her work. Gallery and museum exhibits, magazine articles, lectures, and books highlight her life and her photographs. The book, Lillian Bassman, is a fine tribute to an extraordinary photographer. As Martin Harrison notes in his essay, "The photographs in this book were made by a woman who raised two children, who played poker, drank spirits, smoked, danced the lindy-hop in Harlem, loved the beach in Fire Island, liked clothes, had style."
Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 74pp.
ISBN: 0821223763
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Pub. Date: May 1997
The Photographer's Guide to
Marketing and Self-Promotion
Third Edition
by Maria PiscopoPromoting and Selling Photography in Changing Marketplace
Veteran Photographer's Rep Shares Inside Secrets for Surviving, Thriving New technology and an increased reliance on stock photos have dramatically altered the world of professional photography.
Digital equipment and client requests have altered the scope of the very meaning of "photographer," while scores of professionals who began and ran their businesses by referral and word of mouth are being forced to
Maria Piscopo, a professional photographer's representative for more than twenty years, is an expert at helping photographers to find more clients and make more money—no matter what the size of the individual operation.
re-evaluate their strategies. Photographers, whether beginners or seasoned professionals, need new guidance to face the changed landscape of their industry. The Photographer's Guide to Marketing and Self-Promotion, third edition, by Maria Piscopo has been revised and updated to address the business in its state today.
"Whether you have $500, $5,000, or $50,000 to spend on self-promotion, the rules and techniques are the same," Piscopo observes. She goes on to explain how to build a marketing plan that incorporates self-promotion, advertising, direct marketing, public relations, and the Internet. This
indispensable guide also details:
- researching and winning clients
- negotiating rates
- finding and working with reps
- creating and using portfolios
- promotion pieces
- the ethics of good business
Through real-life examples, case studies, and interviews, The Photographer's Guide to Marketing and Self-Promotion condenses theory into practical, easy-to-follow instruction. No one attempting to promote and sell photography today can afford to be without the proven-successful techniques contained within this classic handbook.The Photographer's Guide to Marketing and Self-Promotion can be found in better book stores, or it can be ordered directly from the publisher by calling 1-800-491-2808, or by going online to www.allworth.com where you will find a full description, a table of contents, and reviews. Distributed to the trade by Watson-Guptill Publications: 1-800-451-1741.
$19.95; 6 3/4 x 9 7/8, 208 pages
Paperback; ISBN 1-58115-096-2
Publication Date: June 2001Maria Piscopo has been a photographer's representative for more than 20 years. She has consulted, lectured, and written extensively about the business of selling photography. She works with artists, designers, and photographers by speaking at industry conferences, conducting professional seminars and conference workshops, and teaching college courses at various locations, including the internationally renowned Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and the Dynamic Graphics Educational Foundation. The author of Marketing & Promoting Your Work, she has had her articles published widely in industry magazines, including HOW, Digital Output, Petersen's PHOTOgraphic, Rangefinder, Step-By-Step, Shutterbug, and Communication Arts. She lives in Costa Mesa, California.
Maria is a current Advisory Board member of Women In Photography International.
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Pioneer Photographers of the Far West
A Biographical Dictionary, 1840-1865
Peter E. Palmquist and Thomas R. Kailbourn
Foreword by Martha A. Sandweiss"A rare example of a readable and even entertaining reference book... here are tales of family drama and stories of business squabbles, accounts of the first women to pursue photography in the Far West, and the story of the first Chinese person to make pictures in San Francisco... A book which sets new standards for research and becomes an instant bible for anyone working in the fields of western American history or the history of photography."
"Distinguished by its imaginative breadth, its copious scholarship and its entertaining literary style, Pioneer Photographers of the Far West becomes the standard that future biographical compendia and photographic history books will aspire to match." From the Foreword by Martha A. Sandweiss
This extraordinarily comprehensive, well-documented, biographical dictionary of some 1,500 photographers (and workers engaged in photographically related pursuits) active in western North America before 1865 is enriched by some 250 illustrations, many of them previously unpublished.
pp. 704 ¾¾250 illustrations
cloth isbn: 0-8047-3883-1 ¾¾$125.00
Parents at Last: Celebrating Adoption and the New Pathways to Parenthood
Cynthia V. N. Peck and Wendy Wilkinson, Photographs by Helen Kolikow GarberFor some, parenthood comes easily; for others, the path to parenthood is long and paved with challenges, not only physical but emotional and financial as well. In words and photographs, Parents at Last celebrates 32 couples and individuals who perservered in their quest to become parents, often in the face of formidable odds.
Hardcover: 50 b/w photographs
160 pages 11" x 8 3/4"
Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. ISBN 0-609-60290-X
No Easy Walk, Newark, 1980-1993
Text and photographs by Helen M. StummerThe book depicts the suburbanites journey into the ghetto, records what she has experienced and celebrates the human spirit.
"No Easy Walk is enormously moving. Carol and her neighbors come vividly to life. The author nicely avoids the customary condescension of too many visitors in poor communities and infuses Newark's Central Ward with all the mixture of sorrow and courage that its residents display...Carol emerges as a woman of tremendous strength and dignity. I hope the book is widely read." - Jonathan Kozol.
Along with meaningful and compassionate photographs, Stummer has provided a brief history of Newark, highlighting its early strengths and clearly itemizing the steps along its decay.
Temple University Press
Philadelphia, 1994
140 pp 16x7
Softcover ISBN 1-566 39-242-x
Hardcover ISBN 1-566 39-243-8Available at Barnes and Noble.
Ten Years After by Nan Goldin
With texts by Cookie Mueller and Guido Costa. After the publication of her first book The Ballad of Sexual Dependency in 1986, Nan Goldin traveled to Naples with her best friend, writer and underground star Cookie Mueller.
Ten Years After is a tribute to Cookie Muller, her husband Vittorio, and his brother Daniele who all died of AIDS. It both commemorates times past and celebrates new found friendships and pleasures. Looking at these photographs the development and refinement of Goldin's photographs is more clearly evident than ever. Eschewing saccharine sentimentality Goldin has transfigured grief and struggle into serene beauty.
Softcover: 92 color 8 x 8 in. (20 x 20 cm)
142 pages
Scalo Books; ISBN 3-931141-79-9
Mary Ellen Mark: American Odyssey
Recently voted by the readers of American Photography as their favorite woman photographer of all time, Mary Ellen Mark has made some of America's most iconic photographs. She is unsurpassed at shaping both the odd and the everyday into genuinely surprising photographs that subtly yet powerfully challenge our preconceptions, or intensify our convictions. Mary Ellen Mark's poetic and at times disquieting photographs form a fascinating portrait of a complex, amusing, and occasionally unsettling country and its people.
A traveling exhibition of Mary Ellen Mark's photographs will be shown at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, May 12, 2000-Aug. 6, 2000.
"Mark works in a classic documentary mode: her work imprints itself on viewers in the way that only great photography can." ---Harpers Bazaar
150 tritone images; 10 1/2" x 12 3/8";
152 pages
Hardcover ; ISBN: 0-89381-880-1
At Twelve: Portraits of Young Women
Photographs by Sally Mann - Introduction by Ann Beattie
At Twelve offers a composite portrait that is both universal and intimately personal. As Ann Beattie writes in her perceptive introduction, "These girls still exist in an innocent world in which a pose is only a pose---what adults make of that pose may be the issue." Sally Mannªs work is in the collections of major museums across the country.
Also available by Sally Mann: Immediate Family; Still Time
"Haunting black-and-white studies of children, shown here as surprisingly sensual and often distant beings, the magical keepers of some obscure and vaguely frightening secrets." --Karen Lipson, Newsday
"Sally Mann's photography is a clear pane...not intrusion, but revelation. These young women distill something for the eye...something beautiful and sad and moving, something purely female." --Diane Sawyer
37 duotone photographs, 9 3/8 x 10 7/8,
56 pages;
Hardcover ISBN: 0-89381-296-X
Women's Camera Work by Judith Fryer Davidov
Women's Camera Work explores how photographs have been and are used to construct versions of history and examines how photographic representations of otherness often tell stories about the self.
Women's Camera Work explores how photographs have been and are used to construct versions of history and examines how photographic representations of otherness often tell stories about the self. In the process, Judith Fryer Davidov focuses on the lives and work of a particular network of artists linked by time, interaction, influence, and friendshipáone that included Gertrude K¡sebier, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, and Laura Gilpin. Womenª s Camera Work ranges from American women's photographic practices during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to a study of landscape photography. ÓWomen's Camera Work by Judith Fryer Davidov
Us & Them by Helmut Newton / Alice Springs.
150 images documenting the relationship between two well-known artists. It contains the pictures they took of each other through the years, their self-portraits, and images of celebrities photographed by both of them, shown on opposite pages. us & them, containing dozens of never before published photographs, is a visual diary of a vibrant and loving, private and professional relationship of fifty years. At the same time, it gives you a surprising view of two highly individual ways of looking and working. An unusual, at times sexy and erotic portrait of the lasting and passionate love between two artists.
Hardcover with dustjacket 200 pages, 7 color and 150 duotones
9 3/8 x 11 in. (23.5 x 27.5 cm)
Scalo Books; ISBN 3-908247-10-1
Geisha : The Life, the Voices, the Art by Jodi Cobb
From Booknews Ó Cobb is a staff photographer at National Geographic and has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work. These photos provide an intimate portrayal of geishas in the modern world. An introduction by Ian Burham offers interpretation of Cobb's portraits, and Cobb's own well-researched essay sets the context. Photos are accompanied by brief quotes from the subjects about their lives, or poems and songs that convey the geisha experience. 11.5x10.5" Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Paperback,Ó128pp. September 1998
ISBN: 037570180X
Publisher: Knopf Alfred A Pub.Hardcover (October 1995) by Jodi Cobb, Ian Buruma (Introduction)
Imogene Cunningham - FLORA by Lorenz
Cunningham photographed plant life throughout her long career, exploring the sensual with a rigorous formal aesthetic. Presented by her long-time curator and cataloguer, this carefully annotated and introduced collection of Cunningham's botanical work is a splendid edition for photography fans and flower lovers alike
Hardcover (April 1996)
Publisher, Bulfinch Press;
ISBN: 082122221X: Dimensions 074 x 12.37 x 9.33
On Photography by Susan Sontag
On Photography has been considered a classic for over twenty-five years. Inspiring photographers worldwide. The set of six essays, are inspiring and thought-provoking. On of the most famous essays is "In Plato's Cave," a deep exploration of how the image has affected society.
From the Publisher Winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award for Criticism (1977), this is "a brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have made in our way of looking of the world and ourselves over the lost 140 years." -Washington Post BOOK WORLD
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978), fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award for Literature in the field of American Letters. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1979, Ms. Sontag received the Malaparte Prize in Italy in 1992 and was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1999 (she'd been named an Officer in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Paperback,Ó1st ed.,Ó207pp.
ISBN: 0385267061
Doubleday & Company, Incorporated
AugustÓ 1978 , 2nd edition 1990
A History of Women Photographers by Naomi Rosenblum
Here is yet another publication that strives to rescue from oblivion the neglected achievements of women in the visual arts. Juxtaposing the past 155 years of photographic history with events from women's social history, Rosenblum (A World History of Photography, LJ 2/1/85) documents women's contributions to the technological, artistic, and experimental development of photography. Her feminist narrative explores women's creativity both as a means of self-expression and as a lucrative profession. The 36 color plates, along with over 200 black-and-white illustrations, include fine examples of portraiture, advertising, and photojournalism. The last section contains valuable thumbnail biographies of approximately 240 female photographers-from the obscure to the famous-whose illustrations appear in the text. An ambitious bibliography makes this a prime tool and stimulus for researchers. Highly recommended for photography, women's studies, and young adult collections. -- From Library Journal Joan Levin, MLS
Hardcover,Ó2nd ed.,Ó400pp.
ISBN: 0789206587
Abbeville Press, Incorporated
AugustÓ 2000
Allworth Press Catalog List
WIPI suggested reading list of Allworth Press titles.
Please check their web site for more titles about The Business of Photography, Education and Promotion.The Photographer's Guide to Marketing and Self-Promotion by Maria Piscopo (How to Find and Keep Good Paying Clients)
*** Maria is contributing writer to WIPI Marketing News. See our current and archival issues for her articles.
Well-known photographers' representative discusses specific and effective ways to build a marketing plan. Emphasis on how to establish long-term relationships. Includes discussion of pricing, taking advantage of market conditions and negotiating.
"Piscopo's book is full of specific practical information that takes into account today's difficult economic climate for commercial photographers...Promotion pieces, portfolios, advertising, public relations, rates, reps and the ethics of good business are just a few of the other topics covered in this excellent manual." --Popular Photography
6 3/4 x 10, 176 pages Softcover
ISBN 1-880559-24-2
ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography by ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers)
Fifth Edition, unquestionably the authoritative source of information on business practices, standards, and resources for professional photographers.
6 3/4 x 10, 416 pages, Softcover
ISBN 0-927629-14-3
Business and Legal Forms for Photographers by: Tad Crawford
Covers electronic rights, essential forms and negotiation tactics. Includes an estimate form; confirmation of assignment, invoice; agency contract; releases and much more. A CD-ROM w/electronic versions of each form is provided.
8 1/2 x 11, 224 pages Softcover
ISBN 1-8890559-82-X
The Law (in Plain English) Πfor Photographers by: Leonard DuBoff
A thorough discussion of the legal and business issues of everyday concern in professional photography. Topics covered include: copyright, defamation and libel, censorship and obscenity, business organization and taxes, working and living space, contracts and remedies, agents, estate planning and more.
6x9, 208 pages; Softcover
ISBN 1-880559-19-6
Pricing Photography by: Michael Heron & David MacTavish
This essential resource for photographers, art directors, and graphic designers explains how to price both assignment and stock photography and gives detailed pricing carts for every use from a magazine ad to a mug. Revised and updated, it covers pricing for electronic rights as well as new developments in business. (Also see ASMP above, both a must to be well informed on the business of Photography)
11 x 8 1/2, 152 pages, Softcover
ISBN: 1-880559-68-4
