Feeding The Insatiable Hunger Of These Wild And Crazy Photobook Lovers

Yes, there can be an over saturation of recycled information that circulates the blogs these days but sometimes that can be a great thing in terms of getting the word out, and, after all, that is the great power and resource of the blog, knowledge. And Jeffrey Ladd's (of 5B4) new on-going publishing project called Books on Books, which is "dedicated to making rare and out-of-print photography books accessible once again to photobook enthusiasts," is a great thing, no doubt, and I hope it is much-a-talked about. Ladd, one of the leading voices in the fine art photography book world, has a keen eye on not only the future direction of the photobook world as the photobook market has gone on steroids and become bigger, stronger and more productive than ever, but also has a deep understanding of where it started and its history. Ladd states in this announcement that he began this project:

"in order to fill a void. The void being that the outrageous prices demanded by the collector's market and scarcity of these titles makes them out of reach to most students, teachers, scholars, and photobook enthusiasts."

"I have a strong belief that people, especially students, should be able to access these great works of art to learn from them and that a valuable part of the dialogue with this medium has been stunted because of that limited access. This series is our contribution to continuing that dialogue."

In a day when there are more and more new photobooks out each season and the accessibility and low cost of online self publishing has made it so many are running out of shelf space, as one can easily get lost in the "what's next, who's doing what," and the "digging in the crates" attitude is abandoned just trying to keep up. My hat is off to Ladd and the project. Don't get me wrong I am right there along with everyone else fork and knife in hand barking, "feed me, feed me," Lil Wayne may be the rapper eater, but I am the photo book eater. It is very refreshing to know there is a new chef in town and we are now able to get our hands on some of those classics.

Lately I have been sneaking back into NYU in order to look at books at the Tisch Photo Department Library that I cant find anywhere else (they have a great collection and is worth checking out). Maybe, I am just a loser but I spent many recesses and lunches in middle school in the library, losing myself in my books. And in college after class I would duck into the library and sit next to a pile of photo books for hours. One of my favorite books at the NYU library was a book on South American train surfers. The cover had a picture of the train surfers in action and I believe was teal in color, most of the photographs were taken at waist level. I can't find this book anywhere! Anywhere! Help me!

Hey Jeff or anyone else if you know the title or photographer of this series please let me know. Its been driving me crazy all summer. Here is the only picture from the book I could find scouring Google: