This series features interviews with independent photobook publishers. This month’s interview is with François and Pauline of September Books.
Handbook by Marie Quéau
Don’t Take Pictures: How would you describe September Books to someone who has never seen your books?
September Books: In two words: we are making picture books. It’s a very restricted and yet very wide definition. We’ll probably evolve so we don’t want to close any doors. Our culture comes from publishers such as Mack, Roma, Spector, but we honestly don’t have the means to publish such books and instead of making it a handicap we are trying to turn it at our advantage. What we are trying to do with September Books today is to draw a correlation between fanzines and beaux arts books.
DTP: What series of events led you to start your own publishing house?
SB: It is pretty common I guess: I (François) was trying to make a book with a graphic designer friend, Olivia Gautier-Jubé, and we loved working on the book process so much that the idea of publishing books by others seemed natural. That is how we published Natalya by Pauline Hisbacq and a few more after that. Our path with Olivia diverged, and Pauline joined me. The name changed a little bit (it used to be Sept Editions) but the spirit remains.
Natalya by Pauline Hisbacq
DTP: How do you find photographers that you want to work with and how do you determine what might make a good photo book?
SB: A good book is something that opens your mind and shows how things can be different. A good photograph will always be good, whether the book itself is good or not. But we try to create a book as an experience of the work, as a story we told through the form of the book and from the spirit of the book. As we are in charge of the design of the book, our job is to reveal the work. We try to be as humble as possible and get into the head of the artist so we can come up with the most accurate form as possible. Every book is different. There is no recipe or strategy in finding photographers, we publish what we find interesting.
DTP: Have there been any books that have been particularly rewarding to produce or that you felt a special kinship with?
SB: We would say Handbook by Marie Quéau. During the making of the book, thinking about the form we investigated on real handbooks, the one you can find with your fridge or vacuum cleaner. It was a huge graphic design feat. We really got inspire by this style and hope that people can see that.
Handbook by Marie Quéau
DTP: What are some forthcoming titles are you particularly excited about?
SB: We have a lot of on-going projects that are all very exciting! We feel that we are evolving. Ici by Louis Gary, who is mostly known as a sculptor, but made beautiful and strange photos during a trip in New Zealand with an 8x10 camera. Eva Louisa Jones, a young English artist who has a very sensitive series, will publish images of her journal. There is also Le premier geste by Amandine Freyd, a collection of images from Atlases about gestures: from smoking a cigarette to holding someone’s hand.
DTP: What was one of the most challenging books that you have published and why?
SB: Probably Nos nostalgies because it’s a kind of catalogue for which we had to present nine different photographers with very different styles in a very limited number of pages. We totally liberated the editing by mixing all the images together without thinking of which belong to whom. This visual medley offers new stories because the images interact together in an original way. This made the connections really fun.
Nos nostalgies
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?
SB: A book is a durable, democratic way of showing images. It’s perfectly natural that photographers want to publish, even more than mounting exhibitions. We would say that the most important is that they know the story they want to tell with the pictures. And a book is a collaboration. It is a dance between the artist and the graphic designer.
I don’t want to disappear completely by Bérangère Fromont
View the September Books website to learn more about their books.