Mathieu Lambert, copyright Douglas Stockdale 2010
I had a nice opportunity to discuss photobooks, personal projects and life with Mathieu Lambert this afternoon. The light Paris rain did drive us indoors for a couple of hours, but that was fine as we quickly found a nice bottle of Pinot Noir. Afterwards we moved out to the nice cushions along the boulevard to enjoy the early evening.
The occasion was to discuss Lambert’s recent DIY photobook Fake Tales of America, which he published with the small photographic co-0p french fourch that he is a member of. It is not usually my practice to discuss a photobook with a photographer until I have prepared my review. That just happens to be my process, as I want to be able to extract my direct impressions versus reacting to a photographers stated intent. But then again, I am not frequently in Paris and it allowed me to take the opportunity to investigate DIY photobooks from an European perspective. And drink some nice French wine on a warm and balmy day, very nice.
My take-away is that DIY in Europe does not seem much different from elsewhere and that we have a very global photographic self-publishing community. Lambert did make a comment about printing his photobook project that did underline one salient point; the ability to have an interaction between photographer and printer. As he was tweaking his design and layout, he needed to perform some printing trials on the printing equipment before he wanted to commit his finances to the small print run.
And now I shall continue reading and enjoying Lambert’s photobook with my review to be published later this month. Merci Mathieu!
Best regards, Douglas
PhotoBook Journal 