Still, I know what Richard Grupe means. Virtually any international forum is replete with casual US bashing, usually by the ignorant. It begins to make you sensitive after a while -- perhaps over-sensitive, in this case.
Quoting Jeff Schewe:
"The last few years (since 2000 or so) saw many of the smaller US boutique publishers that would take a risk, fall on hard times mixed with mismanagement (and in certain cases, fraud & misappropriation of funds). So, now it's a situation where serious photo books are done by a handful of larger publishers run by guys with MBA's where the only real desire is to make money."
Guess what, pal, it's always been this way. There have always been boutique publishers, and they always fail, eventually. As soon as hard times come along, they start falling out the windows. There are two ways to publish: make a profit, or take subsidies. Making a profit is what MBAs are for. Getting subsidies is tough: why should someone subsidize a book by a photographer whose photos aren't good enough to be published and make a profit, especially in the face of so much competition for the subsidy dollar? Competition from agencies who, say, actually feed starving people...So subsidies usually come from people who have a lot of money, and usually only a small circle of those, art-enthusiasts, and when they lose interest, the company goes under.
"So generally, only large scale, mass market crap ends up getting published...coffee table books for the masses and even then, the publishers try to get money out of the photographer to get the book printed & published. Really kinda sucks."
It's called "mass market crap" because masses of people might actually be willing to buy them. It's not always crap, just mostly. The publishing company does this because it wants to survive, and the individuals who work there want to continue working there. It's not because they're philistines. As for the true photo artists -- defined here as "people whose work doesn't sell" -- well, I personally think artists should suffer for their art. Better them, than perfectly innocent outsiders. Keep in mind that 99 percent of all art photography is ill-conceived, ill-thought out, ill-executed crap, of no interest to anyone but the photographer. Failing to publish could be considered a favor to trees.
"There are some signs that the publishers shake-out may be coming to an end finally. At Photo LA in Jan 08 I saw several smaller photo book publishers showing some simple new book styles from relatively established but younger photographers that might be taken as a glimmer of hope. Modern Books in Palo Alto was one of them (I don't have the cards of the other here with me at the moment)."
And probably funded by one of two people out of their own pocket, or the pockets of wealthy people, "art patrons," who expect to lose their "investment," and staffed mostly by young people who are willing to work for virtually nothing, out of enthusiasm and idealism. They will sell a thousand or two thousand copies for almost no profit. These companies will eventually go away, and be replaced by more companies like them, and the trickle of books will continue.
"But I completely agree with Michael that the current state is dismal."
The current state is almost always dismal, if you're talking about a certain kind of sincere (non-cynical) art. See the impressionists. Or the post-impressionists. Or almost any young photographer up to the time of, perhaps, Mapplethorpe. *Successful* young artists in our society tend to show their greatest talents in public relations, not in visual expression.
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JC
