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).

Sales Brisk At AIPAD Photography Show In New York

More than 8,000 photography enthusiasts turned out for The AIPAD Photography Show New York held at the Park Avenue Armory in New York from March 26 to March 29. The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) reported that galleries in attendance enjoyed "a surprising number of robust sales" despite the weak economy and noted that "many dealers commented that business was much better than they expected."

Sam Haskins & The First Edition of Cowboy Kate

Over the course of a long career, photographer Sam Haskins worked in all facets of the field: industrial, commercial, fashion, even hiring out for corporate annual reports. For all that, his reputation rests primarily on one publication, Cowboy Kate (Bodley Head, Crown, 1965). "I did a few books because I wanted to do projects where I controlled the whole process, from conception to the final thing. As subject matter, I chose nudes. And of course, that's what I became famous for," Haskins ruefully recalled in a 2006 interview with journalist Jack Crager, published on occasion of the Rizzoli re-issuance of "Cowboy Kate and Other Stories," his most famous book.

Alongside David Hamilton and John Green, Haskins was one of a casual school of London based photographers who became known for risque and/or erotic photography. While some of it now appears dated, a cartoonish recollection of London-swings-like-a-pendulum-do circa the mid 1960's, Haskins and his informal trilogy ("Cowboy Kate," "November Girl" and "Five Girls") has only grown in stature; he's the only one of the group to be recognized in all three books of the canon, Parr, Roth and the Open Book. (The Rizzoli re-publication of "Kate" did not seriously affect the value of the book in the 1965 Bodley Head (UK) and Crown (US) editions, as is often the case. In fact, the Rizzoli re-issue actually seemed to slightly boost the value of the 1975 second edition, which Haskins self-published.)

Haskins, who now lives in Australia, continues to publish new books and to re-issue new editions of older publications, all of which find a receptive and appreciative audience. As time goes by, however, the evidence suggests that of all his work the impact and influence of "Cowboy Kate" will become his defining achievement.

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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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