HERE IS HOW IT STARTED

I began to look at photobooks and special photo art magazines during my studies in the Eigthies at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Floris M.Neusüss was teaching photography in Kassel at that time and he built up a fantastic collection of photobooks for the Kunsthochschule library. You can find all the classics there. That was the only way to get in touch with what was going on in photography.

There was something in the air about photobooks. We had a small photofestival in Kassel and in 2008 we thought we should place the theme of “Photobooks” at the centre of it. I invited some experts, like Martin Parr, John Gossage, Cuny Jansen, Pablo Monasterio and Markus Schaden, to spend a long weekend looking at and speaking about photobooks. That was a fantastic experience and had a great response worldwide. So a new kind of festival was born.

As a publisher, my first project was “On Daido”, an anthology and homage to one of the greatest photographers ever. We invited Daido Moriyama to come to Kassel in 2013 and dedicated the whole festival to him. For “On Daido”, I invited photographers, critics, writers and curators to give a personal comment on Daido Moriyama. At the end we had a fantastic compilation of many extraordinary photographic and literally statements. We used crowd-funding and a sponsor to finance it.

Jacob Aue Sobol

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE

The biggest challenge is boring: to finance everything and to get enough public response and support from official cultural institutions. But in the end you have to find your own way of getting everything together. Like the book “On Daido” and two years later the artist book “Kassel Menu” I did with Martin Parr. The sales from those books helped to finance the festival.

HOW THE DUMMIES GET SELECTED FOR THE FESTIVAL?

Every photographer can enter books. There is no restriction, except that the dummy may not have already been published by a publishing house. The first selection is made by a Shortlist Jury. This jury selects 50 books which will go on an international exhibition tour to festivals, libraries, and institutions. This jury changes every year and it is a good mixture of women, men, photographers, publishers and curators, who are all very familiar with the medium of the photobook. The Final Jury then selects 3 winning books. Both juries have 6-8 members.

WHAT IS YOUR PUBLISHING PROCESS?

Over the last few years I started a new publishing project called PHOTOPAPER. It’s a new kind of monographic photo publication with a continuously changing editorial team. This publication features interesting work in single monographic issues. The main idea is to make high-quality printed photographic work accessible to as many people as possible by producing the final publication at a reasonable price. Therefore, the production process is reduced to a minimum, while at the same time using high-end printing technology and nice paper. So starting a new issue is a bit like working on a dummy: selecting images, editing, sequencing etc. Sometimes we produce physical dummies, sometimes we work only digitally until the printed issue. I take it from the beginning to the end, and work together with an editor, designer and printer.

Todd Hiddo

ADVICES ON DUMMIES

Sometimes photographers try to make a formally perfect book. These books look as if they have been published already. But a dummy is not supposed to be perfect.

The main goal is a unique idea and a matching unique photographic language. Don’t use text if you are not sure if you can handle this on the same level as your photography, dont try to explain too much, try to work together with an editor and/or designer a.s.o.

DO YOU ALWAYS USE THE SAME DESIGNER? THE SAME PRINTER?

For most projects I work together with the same designer, the printers change. It depends on the project: for some publications a specific printer is the right choice because of the equipment he is using and because of his experience with this specific technique.

HOW DO YOU CHALLENGE YOUR PERCEPTION AND THE WAY YOU JUDGE THE DUMMIES FOR THE FESTIVAL?

Getting a program together is a long process of finding core aspects and the right mix of well-known photographers and unknown talents. But in the end, I never make the selection alone but together with people I trust and know have experience in photography.

MY DISTINGUISHING FEATURE AS A PUBLISHER

Photo books today are not accessible to many people around the world. One reason for this is because they are expensive. The democratic nature of books is that they can be read by many people. So we try to reach this goal by publishing “Photopaper’’. Maybe that’s the difference.

AN ADVICE TO THE PHOTOGRAPHER WHO WANTS TO PUBLISH HIS / HER FIRST BOOK

A good way is to participate in Dummy Awards. Awards which show the essence of the submitted books in travelling exhibitions that can reach many interested and important people, like publishers, jurors and curators – that’s a great way to spread ideas in book form.

2016 Beijing Dummy

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