Interview with Valerio Spada, author of Gomorrah Girl
Grand Prize Winner, Photography Book Now 2011Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I attended a two-year photography program in Milan but started working commercially at the end of the first year, so I quit school and began traveling and shooting commercial work—fashion, advertising, editorial portraits. During that time I founded Cross Magazine with two friends. We made it through a few issues and it was that process that taught me how challenging and important it is to keep everything under control when creating a print piece—and how much I enjoy the process. In 2010, I founded Cross Editions and self-published my first book, Gomorrah Girl.
And, it’s the winning book for PBN 2011. Can you give some background on the book and what it’s about?
Gomorrah Girl is about adolescence, choices, and chances in the land of Camorrah, which is the name of the Mafia in Naples.
The book centers on a specific incident: On March 27, 2004, 14-year-old Annalisa Durante was killed in Forcella, a Naples area under the control of the Camorrah. Annalisa and two friends were in front of her father’s small store, leaning on a car, and talking with 22-year-old Salvatore Giuliano, a young Camorrah boss. Two men on a motorcycle popped out of an alleyway and opened fire. Their mission was to kill Guiliano. Guiliano shot back. Annalisa’s friends ran one way, and she ran another and was accidentally fatally shot by Guiliano. Salvatore Giuliano was charged for homicide and is serving 24 years in prison.
In general, Gomorrah Girl shows the problems of becoming a woman in a dangerous, crime-ridden area. Adolescence is almost denied.
How did you come across Annalisa’s story?
I’d spent nearly three years traveling to Naples in search of a story and during one trip I met Giovanni Durante, Annalisa’s father, and he told me the story about his daughter. Giovanni still owns and works in the same store in Forcella. Every morning he brings breakfast with milk to his daughter's grave. Annalisa was buried along with her cell phone, which was her father's wish, since she used to call him five times a day, every day.
As Giovanni told me the story, I recorded our conversation and took a picture with a compact camera (using Kodachrome 64 film). He was wearing Annalisa's necklace — the picture is the first in the book. I got the roll of film two weeks after our talk, and all was clear. I could see the start of the whole project as a book.
I wanted to take pictures of the original evidence, but the Polizia and Procura della Repubblica denied me permission. However, they did grant me permission to photograph the original notebook that held the evidence from the murder scene. At that point it was clear to me that this had to become "a book within a book".
What did you learn while making your "book within a book"?
Endless things. There’s always urgency in what I do. Fortunately I had the help of the designer Sybren Kuiper. We worked via endless emails and met for the first time after the book was printed. The book is simply the sum of a long time spent in the streets of Naples and a short time in the book making phase, but what came after that is pure happiness.
Who are the photographers who have influenced your work most and what photography books most inspire you?
The photographers who have influenced my work the most are Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Richard Prince, Luc Delahaye, Josesph Koudelka, and Jacob Holdt. As for photo books, my favorites are The Perfect Childhood by Larry Clark and Raised by Wolves by Jim Goldberg.
Interview with Rene Nuijens, author of Yuri Gagarin, 50 Years of Human Space Flight
Category Winner, Fine Art, Photography Book Now 2011Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I learned most of life’s most important lessons while working as a boy in my father’s pet shop. I studied at the Amsterdam Graphic School and the Royal Art Academy in The Hague and am based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Tell us about the core of your project and your book.
I made the book in honor of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s spaceflight. It’s part of the art project "Road to Gagarin" which seeks to spread Yuri’s story and make him a global hero.
How did your project begin?
I started with writer Steve Korver, traveling through Russia in search of Yuri Gagarin.
How long did you work on it?
We went to Russia for the first time about eight years ago and worked on the project intermittently since then.
What did you learn in the book making phase?
Let the photographs speak for themselves and keep to the plan.
What have been the most influential photo books in your artistic development?
Xavier Ribas’s Campo de Agramante, Diane Arbus’s An Aperture Monograph, and my first book: Rene Nuijens’s and Ewoudt Boonstra’s Bad Food Gone Worse.
Interview with Rafal Milach, author of In the Car With R
Category Winner, Documentary, Photography Book Now 2011Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland and at the Institute for Creative Photography ITF in Opava, Czech Republic. I was selected for World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
For the past five years, I've been running Sputnik Photos, a photo collective of documentary photographers from Central Eastern Europe.
Tell us about the core of your project and your book.
In the spring of 2010, the sky over Europe was paralyzed by a volcanic eruption [the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland]. A year before that, Iceland underwent an economic crisis. Sputnik Photos, the photo collective I run, received a grant to make a story about contemporary Iceland. Five Polish photographers worked with five Icelandic writers, each team trying to capture the image of Iceland.
This book is a result of that grant. It’s a personal road diary that covers my travels with Icelandic writer Huldar Breiðfjörð. We took Highway 1, the only road surrounding Iceland.
How long did you work on this project?
I made three trips to Iceland, one with Huldar, and two without. The trips ranged from five to ten days each.
What did you learn in the book making process?
Making a book is a process of communication; creating a clear and readable version of the image you have in your mind. As with my earlier books, I was lucky to work with Ania Nalecka, a graphic designer.
Who are the photographers that have influenced your work most?
At the moment the key photographers for me are Adam Broomberg and Olivier Chanarin as well as Taryn Simon.
Darius: What photo book has most influenced your creative development?
Ghetto by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.
Interview with Thomas Michael Alleman, author of Sunshine & Noir
Category Winner, Travel, Photography Book Now 2011Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born and raised in Detroit and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English Literature, and began making photographs to accompany my articles for a liberal weekly tabloid. Later, I worked with Michael Moore at the Flint (and then the Michigan) VOICE.
After a fifteen-year newspaper career in Southern California, I began freelancing full-time for national magazines, and since then my pictures have been published regularly in Time, People, Business Week, Barron’s, Smithsonian and National Geographic Traveler.
Tell us about the core of your project and your book.
I began Sunshine and Noir in the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York City. Heart-broken and horrified, the only solace I could find was in walking, all day, in Los Angeles through many strange neighborhoods. I took a plastic, medium-format Holga with me, because it wasn’t a “serious” camera, and my mind churned already with a devastation that was way too serious. I began photographing black-and-white metaphors for that grief and bewilderment on empty, sun-blasted streets ready made for such alienation, and so was the tone and template for Sunshine & Noir born.
How long did you work on your project?
It was a laborious, five-year slog. Over and again, I redesigned, reedited, rethought the whole project in the Blurb books I built and studied; the only way to truly “road test” the actual object, the physical book, was always to build another Blurb version and eyeball it as dispassionately as possible, and then start again.
Why did you decide to make a book with this work?
The very simple fact is: books are the central objects in my life, perhaps more than cameras are. Anyway, they were my first love, and making my own was my first real ambition.
What has been an influential photo book in your artistic development?
The first photo book that really seized my imagination was Charles Harbutt’s Travelog, which is distinguished not only by its splendid, cast-eyed street photographs, but also by two essays in which Harbutt discusses his history and philosophy. I also love Lee Friedlander’s first career-spanning anthology and Garry Winogrand’s Public Relations. Between them, those books cemented my ambitions to become a street photographer.
Interview with Goseong Choi, author of Umma
Category Winner, Student, Photography Book Now 2011Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I was born in 1984 in South Korea. I am currently pursuing an MFA degree at the Pratt Institute in New York.
Tell us about the core of your project and your book.
Umma, Korean for “Mom,” is a recent series of photographs from a dramatic family event, my grandmother’s passing. Last January, I was in Korea taking pictures of my family in their daily lives. Then I went to the small village where my father is from. I was photographing the rural life there when I got word that my grandmother had had a stroke. She was in a coma for three weeks, and at the end of the third week, she died. She is my mother’s mother, and during the funeral, its anticipation, and aftermath, I was particularly aware of my mother’s grief and emotion. I felt her deep sorrow and fear. And I photographed the sense of loss. The work that I had already been doing about her daily routine prepared both of us for my role as a photographer during this momentous time.
How long did you work on it?
I worked on this project for about three weeks, from the time when my grandmother went into a coma to her funeral. It was such an intense period of time as a grandson and a short period of time as an artist. The complicated feelings of motivation along with discouragement from sorrow and fear co-existed at the same time.
What did you learn in the book making phase?
I learned about the relationship between the pages. I kept thinking about how to minimize breaking the flow, and maximize the impact by editing the sequence. It was important because my work was focused more on the emotional flow than the actual chronology of the event.
Why did you decide to make a book with this work?
I wondered what would be the best way to present this series. I wanted to share the intimacy in something people could hold in their hands, such as a book, so people could get a more physical, closer approach to the photographs and could get personally involved in the story by flipping through the pages at their own pace.
What was the most enjoyable part of making the book?
The difficult and enjoyable aspects of making the book were the same: the sequence. I spent much of the time being very careful with the relationship between the images and the layout of the pages. It required me to view the editing process very differently from the gallery exhibitions and website presentations. It was both challenging and enjoyable.
What has been an influential photobook in your artistic development?
I’ve liked many of the photo books by William Eggleston. I recently came across his photobook titled, For Now, and it was a good inspiration while in the process of making my own book.