As a requirement for my photography course I was making my way through The Photograph as Contemporary Art when I came across a reference to Ray’s A Laugh, a photobook equivalent to an episode of The Jerry Springer Show. Digging around a bit I found the book (published in 2000) now out of print, with used copies selling in excess of $150, more than $1.00 per page. Ouch.
My google search returned a number of sites with reference to Ray’s A Laugh, including a video that I thought might be someone talking about the book but that was instead a 3-minute document of two hands carefully and deliberately turning through and displaying every page in book. This is part of a video project called Have A Nice Book, the work of two Spain-based artists interested in creating the world’s largest video collection of photography books, currently at 245 videos. Among the familiar names I noted are Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Paul Strand, Stephen Shore, and William Eggleston. Each video is shot in the same format, lasts 2-5 minutes, depending on the length of the book, is accompanied by a musical soundtrack (which I could personally do without), and is downloadable.
As photobooks are often printed in small numbers and are therefore expensive and hard to find (especially in places like the Arabian peninsula), Have A Nice Book is an incredibly helpful service, particularly as a student of art photography. With only two people responsible for all this work, the collection is likely to grow slowly and one can only hope the owners might make this a collaborative project, inviting others to record and upload their own collections.
Have a Nice Book website: http://haveanicebook.com/
Have A Nice Book Vimeo channel: https://vimeo.com/haveanicebook
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