2019 Medium Festival of Photography

by Douglas Stockdale •

Many of the West coast staff of PhotoBook Journal convened at the 2019 Medium Festival last Saturday for the various presentations and book signings. Joining me were Associate Editor Gerhard Clausing, Wayne Swanson (our Contributing Editor in San Diego who attended the entire four-day event), Debe Arlook and Jonas Yip.

Central to my attendance was to meet-up with the photographer/film-maker Louie Palu for an interview that we are developing for PhotoBook Journal. Saturday morning Palu provided a really interesting presentation as part of the Medium lecture series, including a first-look at his film investigating the infrastructure of Ukraine, a timely subject. Later in the afternoon Palu sat down with Swanson, Clausing and myself to talk about his interest in developing photobooks as an integral part of his project development process, which digressed to include life, cameras and photographic trends.

The noon book signing event Saturday was equally interesting to be able to spend time with the photographers and their new book titles and the fascinating projects they developed that led to their publication. As you can probably tell from the photo above, this is a really informal and casual event and a great chance to drill down in the details of a book with the photographer. Also a great networking opportunity.

The Medium book signing event has been growing over the past three years, from a singular book signing by the key note photographer to now including a larger group of authors. My only regret during the book signing this year was not spending time with Meghann Riepenhoff and her artist book, especially after later that day hearing her lecture about creating her hand-made books.

Louie Palu’s two books, Front Towards the Enemy and A Field Guide to Asbestos, have already been featured in the Journal and expect to see a review of some of the other cool books we found in the near future.

It is also my pleasure to announce that Medium has scheduled my next four-day photo book development workshop for next March 12–15 in San Diego; Developing a Creative Photo Book, which you can sign up for now. (That’s my self-serving commercial moment).

Below are the photographers and their photo books present at the book signing:

Louie Palu, A Field Guide to Asbestos and Front Towards the Enemy (Yoffy Press) (photo: Gerhard Clausing)

Emily Matyas, Sol y Tierra, Sun and Earth (Daylight Books) (photo credit: Gerhard Clausing)

Ashly Stohl, The Days are Long & the Years are Short (Peanut Press)

Jodie Hulden, Left Behind (Dark Spring Press)

Bil Zelman, And Here We Are (Daylight Books) (pre-launch event)

Erica Ann Flood, All the Days of Your Life (self-published, book with print) (photo credit: Amelia Perry)

Stephen Milner, Goat Trails (Aint-Bad)

Sant Khalsa, Prana: Life with Trees (Griffith Moon and MOAH Lancaster)