Scot Casey
Google
One of the great photography bookstores in the country. It's not a huge space with a vast comprehensive collection. Rather, the densely stocked shelves represent an elegantly curated selection of the most essential and remarkable photography books in print (and out of print). Significantly, reflective of influence and appreciation, many of the books are signed by the artists. There is the welcome and rare atmosphere of a sort of Borgesian library of photography, where what is more important is the physical presence of the book as an almost mystical technology to collect and display art. Owing to online sales and a well-respected mail-order business, you enter into the beautiful space of photo-eye without feeling like you are the consumer in a commodified environment. What is most important are the books and the beauty within them. Of course, you should buy these books and do whatever you can to support photo-eye. Bookstores like this have become precious places in the post-Amazon environment. For me, there is a sense of making a pilgrimage to photo-eye. After many years of working in bookstores, there is welcome sense of surprise to discover a plethora of titles I've never seen before, to open up so many books that inspire breathtaking wonder. Sublime collections of Wynn Bullock's work, an amazing work called The Last Testament by James Bendiksen, right beside it is The Disappearance of Joseph Plummer, stunning photos and collections of Karl Blossfeldt, Salgado and Saudek, beautifully made-by-hand pamphlets along with the subway photos of Helen Levitt and the evocative almost-lost-to-obscurity collections of Vivian Maier. There are also tantalizing shelves of Out of Print books towards the back. As with all great bookstores, you feel as if you could spend ages here and never exhaust your wonder. photo-eye is such a rare gift of a place, go experience it, open yourself up the the mysteries of the image, buy something, enrich your life.
