What Good are the Critics? or How to Dance about Photography

We live in an exciting, but tumultuous, time for photobooks, and for books in general. It seems a given to refer to it as a "Golden Age." That may be true, but I think this deserves a caveat. On the one hand, technology allows anyone to affordably print his or her own book via outlets like Blurb or Edition One. At the same time, venerable book dealers and publishers like Schaden are closing shop, and even Aperture struggles to make ends meet. While the internet has made possible new models of distribution for independent titles, Amazon continues to undercut profits from smaller booksellers and publishers. This should not be news to any or us here, and discussions about these issues have been occurring for some time, both online and in venues like this very conference. Unfortunately, the critical and economic significance of photobooks has done little to ameliorate these broader and widespread shifts. While the overall volume of photobooks has increased, the task of filtering these books has grown more challenging. Everyone seems to want to produce a photobook regardless of whether or not it makes sense to do so, or the work is ready, or they know what they're doing. It is also increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for any one person to see all the important photobooks published in a given year. Nevertheless, this is a good thing. After all, more books means more good books. It just means there are a lot of bad books too. I feel fortunate to live in New York City, where I have access to places like Dashwood, the International Center of Photography (ICP), and the Strand, but I know I only see a fraction of the books that come out. My pocketbook is limited, there are too many books, and there is simply not enough time. From Aperture's PhotoBook Review to this very conference, we now also have a wealth of venues, online sources, and publications devoted to photobooks. Websites like phot(o)lia.tumblr.com and haveanicebook.com offer video previews of new and significant books, and publishers like Errata Editions offer important reprints and case studies. Likewise, books about photobooks have become their own subgenre and seem to grow in number each year, each with their own regional or thematic focus. A little over a month ago, Matt Johnson from the UK-based Photobook Club helped create a free iBook case study of Ken Schlcs's seminal book Invisible City (1988), complete with interviews and short essays. Examples like this are heartening, and help counteract a phenomenon on blogs and Tumblr that could be called "haul porn," where hooks are either proudly displayed from personal collections or merely advertised for sale. While I love seeing and hearing about new books on these sites as much as the next bibliophile, and value them as a resource. PR usually crowds out, and is confused with, meaningful discussion. As I navigate through different sites, I'm often left with the dazed feeling of a kid who has eaten too much candy: I don't know if I want more or if I'm going to puke. The genre of photobooks used to be the lonely domain of nerdy male photographers, collectors, and book dealers. In some ways it still is, despite all the feverous new collectors--and at least we are talking more and we have more outlets to push the discussion further. I came to writing about photography and photobooks out of a sense of frustration with my own work at the time, as well as a sudden loss of community upon completing graduate school in 2004. At the time, it felt obligatory for any self-respecting photographer to have a blog, and I complied. My own posts were sporadic, and I quickly grew annoyed with my lack of focus and direction, as well as the fact that the blogosphere felt like a giant sycophantic echo chamber. There were few places where meaningful discussion took place, and it often felt as though everything was continually being reposted or was a shout-out to a friend's work or blog. If this was going to be our record of contemporary photography, it felt painfully inadequate. …