This series features interviews with independent photobook publishers. This month’s interview is with Ni Liang of Imageless. 

Don’t Take Pictures: How would you describe Imageless to someone who has never seen your books?

I am a Chinese publisher and photographer. Basically, I work with young, talented Chinese photographers—and also renowned artists—publishing and distributing their works worldwide. 

Ni Liang: What series of events led you to start your own publishing house?

I studied Photography at ICP in New York in 2011-12. Since then, I have been buying photobooks and found it a good way to learn photography. After ICP, I went back to China. I have found there are many talented photographers but very few publishing houses can make decent books for them. My background is in industrial design, and one of the most important skills I learned from ICP is editing. They are the key reasons that made me think: “Maybe I can do photobook publishing.” In 2015, I started to publish the magazine Imageless. It is a collection of several photographers’ works. And right now, the focus is on Photobooks.

DTP: How do you find photographers that you want to work with and how do you determine what might make a good photo book?

NL: In China, we have our own social networks, like weibo and wechat. Mostly I find photographers though social media and building relationships. There are also several Photo festivals in China, we often meet up there.

I am a photographer. After all these years of training and practice, I am confident that I am able to find good work from photographers. Straight photography always fascinates me but in general, good work makes a good photobook. 

DTP: Have there been any books that have been particularly rewarding to produce or that you felt a special kinship with?

NL: The Eighth Day is a book I worked on with artist Gao Shan for almost one year. For this project he photographed with his mother for four years. A lot of pictures include some experimental performing works. When we decided to make the book of this project, he brought all his film negatives to our studio. Gao Shan and our editor Wang TinTin selected 500 pictures and printed them out for editing. They laid out all the images on the walls and ground. About one week later, they made a dummy book of The Eighth Day. We did not start to design and make the book immediately. After three months, we looked over the dummy again and decided to make some adjustments, mostly taking away redundant images. This back-and-forth process took a long time for Gao Shan and me. The designer Guo Xiao was the last person who joined our team but he had a lot of experience in book design and business sense. The last part was printing. We went to the printing company to do the test print, and chose the warm tone paper for the book. In terms of binding, Guo Xiao chose the red line for stitching to echo the red cover and some pictures inside.

Takashi Homma commented on the book, “This is someone who knows their history of photography and photobooks.” That’s a great compliment for us!

DTP: What are some forthcoming titles are you particularly excited about?

NL: Cai Dongdong is a contemporary artist in China. I will publish a book with him for his new work The history of life. This new book is about three generations in the past 100 years in China. He collected about 600,000 old photos in last 20 years and all the images are selected and edited from these vernacular photographs.

DTP: What was one of the most challenging books that you have published and why?

NL: I met Han Lei at Lian Zhou Photo Festival. He is one of the most important photographers and artists in China. He began with street photography and then moved into contemporary visual art. In last 30 years, he had several publications, none of which were a monograph. That was why I approached him and asked if it was possible for him to give me all his negatives of early works. And he said “Yes!” 

We scanned all of his early archives and started editing. The most challenging part was the editing. Han Lei had not even seen a lot the photos before. Wang Tintin was our editor for this book, he divided the body of work into several chapters with themes (e.g. festival, daily life, traveling and kids) and connections. 

When Han Lei gave his negatives to us, he told me that I could make the book into whatever I wanted without asking his opinions. Eventually, he joined the editing with us. This was one of the biggest and heaviest book I ever made, over 200 photos and 1KG weight. But I think he deserved that format to present his masterpiece of work. Without Han Lei’s trust, I would not have been able to publish this book.

DTP: It seems that an increasing number of photographers, at all stages of their careers, are looking to publish a book. What should photographers think about before they embark on the book process?  

NL: I think a book still is one of the best way to present photography. However, before making books, photographers should spend more time on polishing their work, as I said: “Good work makes a good book.” Another tip I want to share is that less is more. In terms of “less” it means the ideas, stories, perspectives and photos. For me, a decent photobook needs solid and visualized photos with simple and good design, clear and straightforward themes.

View the Imageless website to learn more about their books.