Tuesday, 1 July 2025

Parks in Maine





















The book covers assignments Gordon Parks made in Maine during February and August 1944 for Standard Oil New Jersey. It was the largest oil company in the US and had a poor reputation; to counter this, they created a PR photo division under the direction of Roy Stryker. Parks had worked for him when he ran the FSA/OWI up to 1943.

The assignments covered visits to Somerville, Pittsfield, Portland, Windsor, Augusta and Skowhegan, in these towns SONJ had oil installations and gas stations (Colonial Beacon Oil/Esso). The title of the book relates to the general store and gas station run by Herklas Brown in Somerville (twenty-seven photos). These and others in the book concentrate on people, either doing their jobs like the Portland Flying School in Pittsfield where Navy pilots were trained (ten photos) or folks enjoying the Windsor fair (thirteen) and farming in Showhegan (eleven). All of the photos reveal Parks ability to capture the wartime feel of these locations and people.

As this is a Steidl book, there are worthwhile additions. An excellent fourteen-page essay by Frank Goodyear about Parks work in Maine, eight pages of contact boards with thumbnail prints, reproductions of nine pages from 'Flash photography' book written by Parks where he explains his use of flash lights for some of the Maine photos, the cover of Pathfinder (a Washington, DC weekly) with a page about Herklas Brown.

The ninety-odd photos in the book have not been published before and they are a celebration of Gordon Parks creativity.






























 






































Tuesday, 17 June 2025

Celebrates the simple veg 5/5














Originally published in 1985 this book still looks visually stunning, which is why I have a copy. I'll admit I'm not too curious about vegetables but as a publication designer I'm very interested in well-designed titles and this one has the added advantage of being designed by Kit Hinrichs (winner of dozens of design awards). The typography throughout the book is first-class.

The books starts of with brief history of vegetables in America and especially California, this is followed by an A to Z of the subject mixing folklore and fact. The book is printed on a standard paper but there are forty-six pages printed on a semi-matt gloss paper with excellent photos and some illustrations of vegetables. The last chapter has a selection of recipes, all, of course, using vegetables.

I would recommend this book to any print designer as an example of what, initially might seem a sort of dull subject but in the hands of Mr Kinrichs, it really comes alive. 

US
UK

Wednesday, 4 June 2025

Visible decay




















Amber Books, who published this title, has a whole line of photobooks covering man-made debris. The two hundred photos in this book show abandonment around the world selected from Alamy, Dreamstime, Getty Images and Shutterstock photo agencies. One advantage of this is that all the photos are taken by professionals and they all have quite comprehensive captions making the book a step up from the usual abandoned/ruins titles that just have a photo and maybe a line about where it was taken.

I think it's worth saying that the exterior and interior photos just show abandonment rather than photos of vandalisted interiors. Photobooks of Detroit a decade or so back had plenty of photos showing property strewn about interiors, a school classroom for example, or a laboratory.

The photos are a worthwhile mix of exterior (probably the majority) and interior images showing buildings and metal structures taking over the look of continuous neglect and all looking remarkably still, devoid of any human activity. I liked the interior photos of control panels, circular gauges, rusting gears and chains that once were churning some big or small products.

The book is a nice print job (with a two hundred screen) on good matt art paper and I thought very reasonably priced.

US