The Steidl way with books

I thought this was a fascinating documentary with movie director Carlos Saura, Hans Meinke and Gerhard Steidl planning and creating a photobook. It starts with Meinke (Saura's friend, fluent in German and Spanish) and Steidl visiting Saura in Spain to look over his photos taken in the late fifties of ordinary Spaniards, away from cities and Franco's authoritarian regime. Several of these wonderful photos fill the screen and it's clear that he has a good eye for a composition and subject matter.
 

Steidl is convinced that there is a photobook here and then most of the film takes place in the publisher's offices and print works in Gottingen, Germany. An initial selection of four hundred photos slowly get reduced to less than three hundred. While discussing the book's size and pagination Steidl makes this interesting comment:
 

"I think that the book or book production that we are doing should not be a very high priced book. So the book, for me, is a democratic object which is for anybody around the globe and it is relatively cheap, so a high quality book that is beautifully printed for twenty, thirty, forty euros is not an expensive object, it is not a luxury object" (It struck me that this is the opposite of what some other publishers might say, they believe a beautifully printed, short run art book, should be highly priced).
 

Saura's photos are reduced to playing card size and laid out on a long table to work out the sequence and further reduce the number. I found the sequencing operation interesting because, despite being in this digital age, the best way to do this was to physically handle small prints of the photos so they could easily be re-arranged, added to or reduced to get the best flow as the reader turns the pages. This would be difficult to do on a pc screen.
 

Later the photos are digitally examined and any flaws removed and printing plates made, there is some discussion about what grey to use for the printing, black provides the basic image but the addition of light or dark grey inks give the photos that extra sparkle on the page. The documentary ends with a brief visit back to Spain where Steidl presents Saura with his book of photos, beautifully printed of course.
 

The box has two DVD's, an NTSC and PAL version so it can be played anywhere. Also included is a forty-eight page booklet with an illustrated multi-language essay about creating the photobook. Oh yes, one other thing, the documentary doesn't have any annoying background music.