Photobooks, zines, reviewed, etc...

Sheep - Alec Soth (part of the TBW book subscription series 2)

Book subscriptions are a funny thing. As a subscriber, you’re being asked to commit to buying something you haven’t seen yet. You’re being asked to trust that in exchange for your money, you’re going to be sent something worthwhile, sometimes without even seeing a sample of what’s on offer.

Book subscriptions in particular are hard to place in our mental map of cost/value. We see magazine subscriptions all the time, and even though they vary from the ridiculous to the ridiculously cheap, it’s a concept we grasp readily. 

Book subscriptions, on the other hand, are not something we see as often. I was recently introduced to a couple of ongoing series of photography books. I’d like to share the first of these with you today.

TBW Books are now on their second subscription series, and only the standard edition (rather than the signed) of this is still available. For your money ($100, £67) you get 4 books sent to you, each lovingly and personally printed in California. 

Not only does the price represent great value, but these books - from established artists - are only available through the subscription series. 

Now, I am a massive fan of Alec Soth’s work, so I was delighted when TBW Books sent me a promotional copy of Sheep, his book in this series. They couldn’t have picked a better book to get me enthused about the project. Never mind what Sheep is actually about (other than yes, there are photographs of sheep amongst other things), what I love about this books are the snippets of text that accompany the images. 

Alec Soth has often done this (see the notes at the end of Niagara, for example) and I love the context they provide the images with. In this case the notes develop a loose narrative that holds our hand as we progress through the book. While it would be possible to access the images without the text, in this case they really add to the work.

If all the books in the series are of this quality (and I have no reason to suspect that they aren’t) it is clear that I will have to sign up immediately. Meanwhile, thanks to TBW and Alec for another great book.