Magnum Photographers to Attend Aperture "Access To Life" Book Signing on April 23

Aperture Gallery in New York will host a book signing for the publication, Access to Life, on Thursday, April 23rd at 7pm. Magnum photographers who may be present for the event include Jonas Bendiksen, Jim Goldberg, Alex Majoli, Steve McCurry, Paolo Pellegrin, Gilles Peress, Eli Reed, and Larry Towell. Aperture will announce which of these photographers will attend prior to the event.

The publisher describes Access to Life as follows:

"For the past twenty-five years, the AIDS pandemic has inflicted excruciating pain upon humanity, having ravaged the lives of millions of people around the world. Over the past few years, however, a quiet global revolution has enabled millions infected by HIV to live healthy lives through the free antiretroviral treatment program initiated by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

In Access to Life (Aperture, March 2009), eight of the world's leading photojournalists, all members of Magnum Photos, follow thirty individuals in nine countries before, and four months after, they began the antiretroviral treatment, documenting the transformative effect on their bodies, their lives, and the lives of their families..."

Aperture Gallery is located at 547 West 27th Street in New York City (212-505-5555).

Book Signing Etiquette

As more and more photography books are published, more and more photographers find themselves in a position many literary authors know all too well: behind a table, pen in hand, signing their books. Oddly enough, many of the people attending these events seem completely unaware of the etiquette that has grown up around book signings. The new photography book enthusiast apparently thinks nothing of engaging the photographer in long, technical discussions and/or highly detailed questions about specific works, a discussion they seek to continue even as those in the line behind them present their books to be signed. They don't bother to open the book to the title page and present it thus to the photographer, instead creating an extra moment or two of work for the photographer. And they seem to delight in asking for tediously detailed personal inscriptions, which drag the process out even further.

The informal rules of a photography book signing are simple:

1. Have the book open and ready to sign. Pay attention to the person in front of you: if the photographer signs on a particular page, have the book open to it.

2. A brief comment or two is certainly permissable, but starting a Q&A isn't. There are people behind you, and even the most stalwart photographer quickly grows fatigued. At some events hundreds of people line up, and everybody wants the same thing.

3. Personalized inscriptions at lightly attended events are fine. In a crowd, however, they're not. Wait until the end of the event and see if you can be accommodated, or settle for the usual "To [your name here], best wishes."

4. Do not hang around the signing area and attempt to engage the photographer in conversation as he or she signs other people's books. That is hugely annoying to everyone.

5. Some photographers will sign just about anything that's put in front of them, such as postcards, reproductions, posters and the like. Many others, however, won't.

These conventions are more or less ingrained in literary book signings. They're applicable to photography book signings too.

Photographer Deborah Turbeville To Sign Books At ICP April 24

Photographer Deborah Turbeville will be signing her new book Casa No Name (NY: Rizzoli, 2009) and presumably earlier works as well at the ICP Museum Store on April 24. The ICP Museum Store is located at 1133 Avenue of The Americas in New York City.

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Photographer Bruce Davidson Will Be Among Artists In Attendance At Howard Greenberg Book Signing Extravaganza

The Howard Greenberg Gallery will be hosting a Book Signing Extravaganza on March 28 from 4-6pm. The signing will highlight new publications from artists in attendance, including Saul Leiter, Bruce Davidson, Jessica Lange, Vince Aletti, and Eric Lindbloom. The Howard Greenberg Gallery is located in the Fuller Building, 41 East 57th Street, 14th floor(Suite 1406)in New York City.

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