 How's it, how's it guys? I need your help today because one of these three books that I have here from Hiroshi Sugimoto, Chris McCaw, and how Eastman is worth 1,600 pounds. Now one of them is also worth maybe 10 pounds. So what is it about photographs, monographs that makes them cases so wildly expensive? This is what we're going to be exploring today is what is it about a certain photographer's work that makes them command such premium prices, I think is fair, to say about their monographs. Now obviously a photograph or a monograph is only worth what somebody is willing to pay for it. So the reason that I've chosen these three photographers today, not least because obviously one of these books is worth a fair amount of money, allegedly, that is all three of the photographers are, I won't say they're similar in style, they have a similar approach in so much that they're sort of interested in shape and form rather than physical things, you know they're not doing portraits of famous celebrities or that sort of nature. So it's more about the photography rather than the subject itself. Also all three of them within the broader circles of photography not in the wider world are not necessarily well known. So we're not talking about Avedon's and Lieberwitz's and Ansel Adams's, you know names that might be familiar to somebody outside of photography. So the first photographer we're going to look at today is Hiroshi Sugimoto and this book that I have here is a collection of his various works throughout his career and his photography is, I think it's fair to say, you know, quite arty. It's not to everybody's taste but most photography is not to everyone's taste and it runs throughout his work that he's done with museums, with dioramas, with waxworks, through to the long exposures that he's creating with drive-ins where the movie is projected and he just takes an hour long exposure or two hour long exposure and you end up with these very interesting experiments in light and throughout all of his photography I find that there is a very strong sense of quiet, of still, that I find quite intriguing which I think is what drew me in to his photography in the first place rather than any sort of technical aspects. Sugimoto's photography has gone across many sort of different, I suppose, genres you could call it if you wanted to. So this is the kind of work that you're most likely familiar if you are familiar at all with Sugimoto's photography. These kind of these long exposures, these in the seascapes his most famous works. So what's happening here is he's taking a very long exposure and letting the film play, the actual film, the movie film, play on the screen as this exposure is taking place. You end up with this bright burnt out, you know, sort of patch of white and of course we may look at that and go well there's just a patch of white, there's nothing, nothing there, why would that be interesting and he would of course say well that's the, that's all of the movie seen in a fraction of a second. I think this is kind of why you find his photography can be, you know, a little bit challenging, a little bit full-on because it's nice. I like his photography and I hesitate to use the word nice but it is interesting and I do like the look of it but unfortunately it's wrapped up with a lot of arty-farty brouhaha meaning which I don't think necessarily adds anything to the photography. The seascapes that he creates are, I find lovely, I find them very tranquil, I find them very peaceful, I enjoy looking at them, they are certainly nothing technically exciting but they just have a feeling of calm, a feeling of calm that I find is quite often lacking in photography. Sugimoto's architectural photography isn't really getting into the realms of long exposures and what have you but more what Sugimoto calls infinite focus which I suppose is again a bit of art nonsense saying out of focusness which is a whole another discussion thing and if you are familiar with infinite focus please do enlighten us in the comments below. Now I do like the, this approach to his architectural photography, granted again it's very different to someone like Ezra Stoller who's more about the actual form and the feature whereas Sugimoto's kind of breaking it down into nothingness and just letting us kind of fill in or you know sharpen up the image if you will. Once again he sort of dips into this realm of taking photographs of wax works and saying that they are art you know that these photographs are you know somehow important and special and what have you and I'm going to be completely honest I think this is why what I do I do not get this I don't see what anybody would think this is good it's it isn't any different to something that you know a student a student could take and again let me know in the comments what you think about these I don't like them I was going to be asked it's okay to say if you don't like any or certain photography I'm going to finish looking at his book with these again long exposures of candles that have been left to burn down their entire length of the stem of the candle and I get you know I I much more prefer this than the work with the wax works and the dioramas I think this is more exciting it's more interesting about what happens throughout photography or certainly what happens throughout Sugimoto's photography and how he sees the world. The second photographer is a gentleman called Chris McCall and this particular book called Sunburn which is all about very very long exposures where the sun has physically burnt a hole in the negative this is you know this is I think that's going to an extreme and I first came across Chris's photography through another channel whereas watching it and I was intrigued by this process because it's it is something that I've never ever considered before and I very much like when I come across photography that doesn't have an obvious approach that there's something different like the first time that I saw sort of toy photographer Holger photography and obviously that's been sort of done to death but Chris is doing something that requires a dedication requires a patience and requires an understanding about how the actual nuts and bolts of photography work because you can't just sort of set up a camera and say well I'm going to do a long exposure and have done with it you know this is obviously the work of many hours of experimentation so this book is Chris McCall's Sunburn and what's happening with these photographs is that he is using a plate camera and creating again like Sugimoto and or extraordinarily long exposure and what's happening is that the sun this is the sun coming towards this is not a moon and the sun is actually burning a hole a physical hole in the negative and that's what as I mentioned earlier drew me to these photographs the first time I saw it like wow that is that's outstanding because not only have we got that physical presence of the sun the sun burning into the negative itself it is also dealing with all the issues all the problems that you would get from having a long exposure so these kind of this odd solarization so saboteur is it saboteur effect going on on the edges where there's the sun because of this massively long exposure is physically changing the film and I keep coming back to this idea of physically changing it and that's of course what is going on in these these images is that the sun boom boom boom boom is punching holes punching holes into the film making its presence known and there is something about these photographs that I find completely otherworldly whereas I find Sugimoto's images calm I find them relaxing I find these photographs absolutely like they are some sort of alien world because it is well it's quite recognizably ours but look at these two prints look at these these these plates they they look like they come from somewhere else they look like they inhabit a world that is not ours and I love this about his photography and I would absolutely want to have some of these up on the wall whereas I don't think I would want to have Sugimoto's images up on the wall I mean look at this look at this pint here I just it I can't actually describe how much it affects me there's there are sometimes I lack the vocabulary to say how much a photograph is like just wow that's and and something does actually need anything more than that I don't know if this is going to get quite across the the frame here unfortunately but this as you can sort of see is a is a massive like long sort of time-lapse image I don't know quite how he's done this but that's of course the beauty of these things is that we don't know well I don't really know if you know please let me know but I love this it's it's it's a dedication I think is probably what I'm really getting from this is that he's spent the time to this because obviously this is not just I'm going to go out and take some pictures I'll be back in half an hour kind of vibe this is this is somebody who is dedicated to creating something so the third photographer that we're looking at is how Eastman and his book dance and this book is all about movement and shape and again longer exposures there seems to be a theme going through maybe that's the key if you want to have a book that's worth a lot of money and create monographs that people fall over themselves to buy then just do longer exposures who knows who knows anyway how does a great thing where he is just kind of using these long exposures within natural settings within the forest within you know anywhere that there's lots of lions going on and then introducing the dancing shape into that and and in some respects this reminds me of photography from you know when I was kind of younger so like the 1970s where where things like this were quite fashionable if you want to say that that that longer exposures with lots of motion within them had a kind of that was as that's what arty was I don't know where that sort of feeling comes from and obviously that's just a personal view so the photographs in this book are accompanied by text and put together in such a way that we are I think we're trying to create some sort of juxtaposition take some sort of meaning combining all of the three whereas the photographs in the previous two monographs are more standalone they're more kind of make a judgment about what this image is saying and and I quite like the fact that these these shutter speeds are not as long as Sugimoto's or Chris McCaw's so you have more of an idea of the form the form of the shape of the thing that we are looking at so we can recognize that these are dancers and I've always been a big fan of this kind of dragging the shutter sort of motion within the photography world it I know it kind of fell out of favor for a while and but this is kind of what I grew up with when when you looked at sort of more going beyond basic techniques people start talking about shutter speeds and and shutter drag and and and what have you and so this kind of reminds me of my childhood somewhat and again we got the birds over here who are this lovely kind of almost sort of impressionist sort of feel and and this this young lady in the light the light in this is absolutely gorgeous even though you know you can't actually see the light too much the shapes and and what this creates I love this I love it because just like with the other two photographers Sugimoto and McCaw that the results are not known until you see the image I think that's that's that's something that I really like would like connect with again in photography is the the the element of the unknown and you never really know what you're going to get with these kind of the shorter or the longer shutter speeds this is something that everybody can try that you know no matter if you are a landscape photographer or people photographer or street photographer this kind of experimentation with shutter speeds of of creating movement or creating flow and feeling doesn't matter if it's sharp doesn't matter if it's in focus is so much more fun certainly as far as I'm concerned than just trying to get pin sharp tonally rich images which seem to sort of lean more into the scientific side of things where these kind of tend to feel they are more artistic in intent the color work in this photography is absolutely gorgeous now you may have guessed from looking at my table here that the room in which I photograph is got a bit of a mid-century modern sort of feel to it and and these prints would go absolutely wonderfully on the wall here so if you have some Hal Eastman prints then please let me know because I would be interested in in in having a chat with you these three books are very different they are you know they're they're physically they are they're quite different I like if I had three hands I would hold up the as well so you know they are all just monographs at the end of the day they don't have anything special that the papers are not made out of gold or anything like that it's purely about the photography and I think if you're looking at these photographs that you may have looked at some of them gone well I like this idea and I don't particularly like that idea and that that idea feels a bit what have you and kind of gone I don't wouldn't pay 1600 pounds for any of these books and and quite frankly um neither would I I didn't buy any of these books when they were expensive I bought them when they were what a normal monograph would be like and this is what I'd like you to do is if you are sitting that you've been buying monographs for many years make sure that you actually know realistically not necessarily how much actually they're worth but for insurance purposes you may find that your monograph collection is worth a lot of money so take the time go through them just see what you are sitting on you never know you might be sitting on some huge huge valuable books all of these books I paid less than a hundred pounds one in fact most of my paid considerably less for that you know I think the most expensive one that I bought was the Hiroshi Sugimoto book which I managed to get from somebody actually on on ebay just who was I think in some diastrates was having to get rid of some of their their monographs unfortunately and I was the beneficiary of that but the other two I bought normally as as you would just you know online this one was second and this one was new and between them I think maybe it cost me 30 pounds for the two of these now the burning question of course is which one which one is worth the 1600 pounds is it is as grunting picking up is it the Hiroshi Sugimoto with his Japanese art photographer credentials or is it you know Chris McCall with his unique take on long exposures and in this and it fairly has to be said just fairly slim volume of work or is it the blast from the past how Eastman the photographer that you've probably never heard of who maybe maybe the the black sheep right where he is just coming out of nowhere and is worth a lot well of course the answer is actually that it is it's Chris McCall so this book here is according to amazon the last time I checked in a book's worth in the region about 1600 pounds whether or not it is is entirely in your hands let me know in the comments do you think monographs have become ridiculously overpriced or do you think there's actually value in a monograph as a as a collector item all of these three photographers have been working heavily with light and and bending it to their will and that's a fundamental thing in photography if you're interested in more about learning how to shape and use light then check out this video over here