First edition of First Pictures by Joel Sternfeld (2011)

First impression

Large format hardback in very good condition

Some spotting to boards, there is some very minor creases to tipped in image

Some very minor toning to extremities of pages

Otherwise, pages clean, binding firm

About

This is the first book of Joel Sternfeld’s largely unseen early color photographs. In 1969 Sternfeld began working with a 35-mm camera and Kodachrome film, and First Pictures contains works from this time until 1980. Here Sternfeld develops traits that appear in his mature work: irony, a politicized view of America, concern for the social condition. But there are also pictures that bear little relation to his later work: color arrangements that parallel those of Eggleston, as well as street photography which Sternfeld ceased making in 1976. The photographs inFirst Pictureswere made at a time when color photography was struggling to assert itself against the authoritative black-and-white tradition, making this book a revelation both in Sternfeld’s oeuvre and in the history of contemporary photography.