It's one of those dark Fall days, my wife is working late, and I am all ready behind in my days work. Lacking motivation I went to a late lunch and stopped off at the local used bookstore. Someone had sold a bunch of Ansel Adams books and they were out for sale. I had some of them and the ones printed poorly weren't worth buying. I notice one book "Yosemite and the Range of light" which I have in paper back but took a look anyway because this copy was a hardcover. I saw the price on the dust jacket and it was $9.98 so I thought why not look inside. The first thing I saw was the $100.00 price. The next thing I saw was the card put into this book with a note that it was a special edition, and I saw the unmistakable signature of Ansel Adams. I bought it and three others for under thirty dollars.

I feel more motivated so I'm off to the darkroom to develop some 8x10 negatives of my wife and son that I took this last weekend.

Curt

Happy for you!
Now the book has found it's reader

Cheers
Marc

Congrats on the purchase. If not for used bookstores, my shelves would be bereft of photography books.

It is rare there a new photo book that catches my eye - they all seem to scream 'digital this...' or 'photoshop secrets that...' these days.

My local symphony has a used book sale fundraiser project that accepts donations of books year round, and warehouses them at a mall that still is a worthwhile neighbourhood mall, but is past its glory of retail days (one department store has been converted to an an insurance company). One week a year , usually a few weeks after the kids are back in school, there is a sidewalk sale type of affair. The final day you can buy a large bag for $5, and fill it with whatever books you can get in it. We usually go early for the good stuff, and on the last day for a winter's worth of novels to read.

I agree with Mike about new photo publications. Very little interests me in the popular press. I frequent used bookstores or go to the bargain table more often. I'm also a big browser at Amazon's marketplace for old books available cheap. I recently bought a very nice copy of the 1973 Leica Manual, several books by David Douglas Duncan, a book of Willy Ronis' photos and the biography of Henri Cartier-Bresson.

It's as though everything moved on and no one was looking, knowing or interested. I agree that the used book stores are a treasure trove for great books. I just need to frequent them more often.

I'm always amazed what folks get "rid" of! Case in point: my roommate had bought for me, last Christmas, the beginning of my Time/Life book collection of Photography. I, then, find in my public library bookstore another volume of the set!! :D :o
So many good things--so little time to search for them all:(

You may want to sign up for Powell's email on used photography books as they receive them.

http://www.powells.com/rau?s=57&d=20071111&utm_source=rau&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Photography%20sunday&utm_campaign=rau_20071111&utm_content=Find%20complete%20selection

Well, this takes you to the list, but somewhere on the site you can sign up to get the new list by email, every couple of days.