One of the main goals of many emerging photographers, is to have a  photobook published by a major publisher. In my personal work I have been really interested in the relationship between showing work in a gallery and sequencing work in book form. In talking about this with the other grads we thought it would be interesting to ask a photographer with some first hand experience to shed some light on their thoughts on photobooks. So we asked photographer Dave Anderson some questions on the subject of photobooks, and he was nice enough to reply to our questions with a video.

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This is part 1 in a two part video interview. Part 2 coming soon.

Dave Anderson has had two photobooks published in the past few years. His first a work Rough Beauty (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2006) focused on the small Texas town of Vidor, which has a long standing stigma of being a KKK hotbed. His photographs create an intimate portrait of a town that has been marked by it’s past. His second book recently released is One Block (Aperture, 2010). In this body of work Dave has focused on New Orleans post Katrina deciding to focus on one specific block’s struggles with reconstructing after the devastating storm.

What has always struck me about Dave Anderson is his unique ability to connect with people from all walks of life. This is an ability that I feel all  photographers of people must possess, and something not all photographers do. Like Arbus, Dave has a interaction with his subjects beyond just a passive observer, often befriending his subjects. Its this ability that has helped Dave  create the striking humanist photographs contained within Rough Beauty and One Block.

http://www.dbanderson.com

Dave did a nice audio slide show for Orion Magazine that can be viewed here

and an NPR audio slideshow for his first book Rough Beauty can be viewed here