When it comes to photography books, there are some names that I find simply irresistible.
That means I will adopt a ‘buy first, think later’ attitude when it comes to their books. Very often, it means I have no idea what I have bought until a lot later.
One such person will be Josef Koudelka.
Case in point – En Chantier. Une Universite et un quartier. Paris 13e, Massena, a book Koudelka collaborated with young French photographer Aymeric Fouquez.
I had absolutely no idea what this book is about until this afternoon, when I was suddenly motivated to get to the bottom of things.
From what I managed to dig out, this was commissioned around 2002 just before the Paris Rive Gauche business district of the 13th arrondissement (district) in Paris was levelled and subsequently transformed into a university neighborhood.
There are only a total of 21 images – 10 black and white panoramas by Koudelka and 11 color plates by Fouquez.
I want to believe that I bought this in Paris simply because it is in French but I somehow have a feeling that it was more like Naples, Italy, because it was in that southern Italy city that I had this epiphany that there are many more books I need to buy in each foreign city.
It was there and then I realised that almost every city has its own stable of publishers and specialties, many we won’t encounter unless we travel.
Well the added bonus, not that I needed one, was that while trying to find out more about this beautiful book, I also found out how much it is worth now.
Quite a lot from what I originally paid for but then again, it doesn’t matter because I don’t sell the books I collect.
Oh well, there are exceptions but let’s save that topic for another day.