Estan Cabigas

A surprising find at a bargain bookstore

My first book of Nan Goldin was a handy 60-pager that introduced me to her mesmerizing work. I bought it in Hongkong in 2006 and has images from her various publications.

Last Saturday night, while looking at some photography books at a book sale, I never expected to find her The Devil’s Playground, published by Phaidon in 2003 that I immediately took hold of it! Even though the jacket was already gone, it’s so rare for these kind of books to be available here that I just have to get it and cost me just P980 (about $21).

A beautiful book wherein the author interviews noted photographers about their work. For one needing some inspiration, rereading it is therapeutic.

Inside pages showing the work of Charles Freger

I need inspiration and Anne-Celine Jaeger’s Image Makers, Image Takers book is just what I need. Rereading her interviews of noted photographers like Stephen Shore, Sebastiao Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark, Charles Freger, and 15 others talk about their beginnings, processes, and photography helps me in reassessing my own approach to come up with better ideas and fine tune my manner of working. It’s insightful and the photographers are from different disciplines: art, documentary, fashion and advertising, portraiture and what she calls, the next generation.

The author didn’t limit it to working photographers but also included photo editors as well as publishers, agency directors, curators and gallerists. In this way, you get to have an idea of how the business is and how these movers and shakers think, look and consider. The mix of 218 illustrations found in the book is interesting and the images by the different photographers gives you a good range of their work.

As what the blurb said, this is “the essential guide to Photography for those in the know.“

My complementary copy of the World Press Photo 09 catalog just arrived today

Surprise, surprise! What better to start my month of July than with my complementary copy of the World Press Photo 2009 catalog that arrived early this morning, shrink wrapped and posted. In this year’s competition, 5,508 photographers from 124 countries submitted a total of 96,268 images. 37 of us are from the Philippines.