Errata Editions, the new publisher founded by Jeff Ladd, Ed Grazda and Valerie Sonnenthal, is getting ready to launch the first four titles in their eagerly anticipated "Books on Books" series:
Books on Books #1: Photographe de Paris - Eugene Atget
Books on Books #2: American Photographs - Walker Evans
Books on Books #3: Fait - Sophie Ristelhueber
Books on Books #4: In Flagrante - Chris Killip
Jeff Ladd recently completed a series of posts on 5b4 detailing his experience in China while on press for these initial offerings in the eagerly anticipated series. Throughout the posts Jeff switches between a blow for blow account of the printing process:
8:26 pm. I think I've been lucky to get two fine pressmen as my day and night shift operators. They speak almost no English so I always have a liaison with me to make my changes known. I don't even know their names but they are young, perhaps between 23 and 28. In fact, much of the workforce here seems to be around 20-30 years old and a very large percentage are women. Most live on-site in the worker's dormitories across the courtyard from where I am staying. Everyday at 11:30 am a wave of people walk to the commissary for lunch. That's the usual signal that I can have at least an hour of sleep uninterrupted.
...and the story of the series from early inception forward:
I have been asked many times why not just publish facsimiles. The idea of doing exact facsimiles was less interesting to me for several reasons. First and foremost I wanted these books to include additional scholarship from a contemporary stand point in the form of essays that discuss the book and its impact as an object. If doing a facsimile these additions would be an odd inclusion and basically go against the idea of a facsimile completely. So I decided to try to make these books studies that would not try to replace the original but to sit alongside it as a companion.
The account is a must read — easily one of the most enlightening and entertaining explorations of the process to date. (Of course, we expected no less from one of the world's leading photobook connoisseurs.)
Read parts one, two, three, four and five plus a recent Books on Books Series Update at 5b4 — learn more about Errata Editions at their website.
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