ABAA-member Raymond Smith has an exhibition of his black-and-white photography, "In Time We Shall Know Ourselves" running at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT through June 3, 2018. Inspired by the photographs taken in the American South in the 1930s by Walker Evans, a teacher and mentor of Smith at Yale University, as well as by Robert Frank's The Americans (1958), in the summer of 1974 Smith emba... [more]

Members De Wolfe and Wood and Michael Brown Rare Books were featured in the NYT Lens Blog today for their collection of 46 Walker Evans photographs taken in 1933 Havana and safeguarded for years by Ernest Hemingway. The circumstances of Evans' trip and the prints' survival is quite a story, and the pictures are excellent examples of Evans' work. View the catalog... Read the NYT Lens Blog... Girl a... [more]

The fourth installment of Kaitlin Manning's series on taking better pictures of rare books and ephemera. No matter what kind of camera you use, there are a few basic practices you can apply before you start shooting to improve the look and quality of your images (and to avoid fixing time consuming mistakes later on). While it is true that editing programs like Lightroom, Photoshop, and Gimp can wo... [more]

The third installment of Kaitlin Manning's series on taking better pictures of rare books and ephemera. After buying a camera, learning how to use it, and setting up your home studio, the natural next step is to actually start taking photos, right? Ah, would that it were! One very important and often overlooked step for those new to digital photography is to consider how you will process and store... [more]

The second installment of Kaitlin Manning's new series on taking better pictures of rare books and ephemera. (Review the first part here...) Setting up a home studio does not need to be an expensive affair. Besides your camera, there are two basic elements to a studio: a backdrop and lighting. For the backdrop, the simplest and most effective method is to create a “scoop” background (sometimes... [more]

Kaitlin Manning introduces a new series of blog posts aimed at helping dealers take better pictures of rare books and ephemera for online use. Up until now, I have focused my blog posts solely on social media sites and how to best use them to your advantage. In the next few posts I will tackle a related and equally important topic, a source of much anxiety, confusion, and the desire to throw thing... [more]

UPDATE (5/13): RECOVERED Three items have been reported missing in the wake of the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. (Two broadsides and one CDV -- descriptions below.) The items were last seen in Booth B-12 and were likely misplaced during move-out. If you catch word of these items, please contact ABAA Security Chair Garrett Scott via email. With thanks, Garrett Scott Chair, ABAA Security Committee... [more]

The 48th California International Antiquarian Book Fair kicks off on February 6, 2015. One of the keynote events at the fair is a presentation on Jack London's photography, by archivist and noted London expert Sara S. Hodson. Jack London (1876-1916) is now best known for stories and novels like The Call of the Wild and The Sea Wolf, as well as his many adventures as a sailor, Klondike gold-seeker,... [more]

ABAA member Raymond Smith (R.W. Smith Bookseller) recently published In Time We Shall Know Ourselves, a book of 52 photographs taken during his three-month road trip through the Eastern half of the United States in 1974. Publication of the book coincided with a traveling exhibition of the photographs that commenced at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts in June. The exhibition will be on display at... [more]

Ray Smith of R.W. Smith Bookseller has published his long awaited photo book, In Time We Shall Know Ourselves (images available at the link). It contains 52 photographs from a three-month photographic road trip through the Eastern half of the United States in 1974, and includes essays on the photographs by Alexander Nemerov and Richard H. King of the University of Nottingham, and an afterword by ... [more]

We were excited to see Catherine Opie name Andrew Cahan as one of the un-sung heroes of the photography world in Aperture's Photography As You Don't Know It series. As a monograph collector, Ms. Opie was struck by Cahan's focus on Japanese monographs from the 1970's. From that point onward, she was hooked and they became fast friends. Cahan has moved back to his hometown of Akron, Ohio and still s... [more]

Florence Shay in the summer of 1942 when she and Art met at camp. Photograph by Art Shay Chicago Magazine recently published a lovely tribute for ABAA member Florence Shay who passed away in August 2012. The piece is based on an upcoming exhibit by Florence's husband Art Shay, the accomplished photojournalist, and the photographs present an intimate portrait of the intelligent, vivacious woman Ar... [more]

The only confirmed photograph of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic will be offered at auction next month. The photo was taken by the captain of the S.S. Estonian two days before the infamous crash occurred. The caption in black ink reads, “Copyright. Blueberg taken by Captain W.F. Wood S. S. Estonian on 12/4/12 in Lat 41° 50 N Long 49° 50 W. Titanic struck 14/4/12 and sank in three hours.” (... [more]

The Atlantic recently featured a post on tintype photography and a short video about Harry Taylor, a modern professional photographer who uses the technique in his own work. I found the process interesting and the images striking, so I wanted to share a little of the history, and the video, with you. Tintype photography developed as an alternative to daguerreotypes and ambrotypes. The process was ... [more]

Henri Cartier-Bresson was one of the most renowned photographers of the twentieth century, considered by many to be the father of modern photojournalism and a "master of candid photography". From 1967-1997, the majority of Cartier-Bresson's beautiful black and white photographs were printed by Voja Mitrovic, a master printer at Picto, the famed Parisian photo lab. During the time they worked toget... [more]

The Long Island Museum presents: Photography and Genealogy with Ray Smith What’s in a Photograph? Sunday, September 18, 2011 • 2 p.m. ABAA member Ray Smith will be presenting a lecture and workshop on the interrelationship between photography and genealogy, and how research in both fields can compliment one another. Each program is different, depending on what audience members bring for examin... [more]

Bibliofile, Yale's dedicated site for Book History, has announced the publication of “Rare Book Photography: An Introduction”. This free guide “explains the handling and photographic practices that support libraries' preservation aims and the needs of researchers in clear language accompanied by many illustrations from Yale's Medical Historical and Law Libraries.” Click here to view or dow... [more]

Last weekend at the 44th California International Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco, the ABAA held a raffle in support of the Elisabeth Woodburn Fund. For those who are unfamiliar, the Elisabeth Woodburn Fund is non-profit charitable fund established by former ABAA President Elisabeth Woodburn in 1990. It is overseen by the Trustees of the Benevolent Fund and the Executive Director of the ABA... [more]