Media coverage quick links:

• The Bookseller
• British Journal of Photography
• ePHOTOzine
• Bookbrunch (click image below to view)

Director and Head of Photographs at Christie’s auction house, Philippe Garner has been chosen to chair the panel for the Best Photography Book Award 2010. He will be joined by Tessa Traeger, the photographer widely acknowledged as having raised still-life and food photography to the status of art, and Charlotte Cotton, author, curator and Artistic Director of the forthcoming London galleries of the National Media Museum.

Philippe Garner comments ‘Despite predictions that it would be made redundant by the digital media, the printed book remains a vehicle without parallel for the presentation, dissemination and preservation of images and texts in contexts of scholarship or creative expression. I am delighted that the And/or Book Awards continue to support and celebrate the crucial role of book publishing in our culture.’

The judging panel for the Best Moving Image Book Award 2010 will be chaired by Francine Stock, journalist, film critic, novelist, and presenter of the The Film Programme on BBC Radio 4. She will be joined by documentary filmmaker, writer and curator, Mark Cousins, and Professor John Orr, author and specialist in Film Studies and Modern Culture at Edinburgh University.

Francine Stock comments “These awards rightly focus attention on the scholarship and imagination of the best books about film – an art form which so powerfully mesmerises but also sometimes puzzles us. This is a chance to give those books, which may be the literary equivalent of cult movies, the opportunity to be appreciated by a larger audience.”

Marking their 25th anniversary year in 2010, the And/or Book Awards celebrate excellence in photography and moving image publishing. Up to £10,000 prize money is divided between the Best Photography Book Award and the Best Moving Image Book published or distributed in the UK in 2009.

The panels will choose two shortlists to be announced in March 2010 and a winner for each award will be announced at an awards ceremony at the BFI Southbank in April 2010. The judging panels will be looking for works that make a significant contribution to photographic and/or moving image scholarship, history, research, criticism, science and conservation.

Best Photography Book (£5,000 prize)

Susan Meiselas: In History edited by Kristen Lubben (Steidl)

Best Moving Image Book (£5,000 prize)

Photography and Cinema by David Campany (Reaktion Books)

Download the full press release (.doc)

Press Coverage

• The Telegraph
• The First Post
• The Bookseller
• e-photozine
• Design Week
• What Digital Camera
• fotografie.nl
• Little White Lies

The Times online gallery promoting the awards.

A round-up of press coverage for the 2009 And/Or Book Awards:

• The Times Online featured a gallery of images from the shortlisted titles (see screengrab above).
• The Telegraph
• The First Post
• The Bookseller
• e-photozine
• Design Week
• What Digital Camera
• fotografie.nl
• Little White Lies

Finally you can enter a competition via the BFI, as featured in their reader offers:

• Download the BFI competition info (pdf)

The shortlisted titles for the 2009 And/or Photography Book Award are:

• Brought to Light: Photography and the Invisible, 1840-1900 by Corey Keller, Jennifer Tucker, Tom Gunning and Maren Gröning (Yale University Press)
• From Somewhere to Nowhere: China’s Internal Migrants by Andreas Seibert (Lars Müller)
• Susan Meiselas: In History edited by Kristen Lubben (Steidl)
• The World from my Front Porch by Larry Towell (Chris Boot)

The shortlisted titles for the 2009 And/or Moving Image Book Award are:

• Photography and Cinema by David Campany (Reaktion Books)
• Fight Pictures: A History of Boxing and the Early Cinema by Dan Streible (University of California Press)
• Performing Illusions: Cinema, Special Effects and the Virtual Actor by Dan North (Wallflower Press)

Over 150 titles were submitted across the two categories for the awards, which have been narrowed down to a final seven books by the two judging panels chaired by Martin Parr (Photography) and Mike Dibb (Moving Image). The judges were looking for works which make a significant contribution to the understanding of photography and/or the moving image and which use photographs as more than a means of illustration.

The photography shortlist includes: a book which steps back to a time when the new visual technologies of photography, x-rays and microscopes captivated scientists and the public alike; a photo essay by Andreas Seibert investigating the lives of China’s internal economic migrants; an in depth look at Susan Meiselas’ esteemed career in socially engaged documentary photography; Larry Towell’s personal photo album comparing his family life in rural Ontario with his photojournalist work the world beyond.

Martin Parr comments: “It is reassuring that despite the internet and the credit crunch, so much effort and care goes into the making of these books, all of which reflect the application and passion of individual photographers or curators.”

The moving image shortlist includes: David Campany’s missing history of the connections and influences between photography and cinema; a revelatory investigation into the importance of boxing films in early cinema by Dan Steible; Dan North’s exploration of the essential role of illusion to the process of movie making.

Mike Dibb comments: “When I first worked in cinema there were so few books available on the subject, now I am amazed that there are so many. We all agreed on the shortlisted titles though, which all demonstrate insightful academic analysis, written clearly and without jargon.”

Download the full press release (pdf).

With:

Design Week Online

Book Brunch Online

The Drama Student Online

Booktrade.info

Imagine Animation

© David Hockney

The Competition

First prize will be awarded to the student who the judges deem to have produced the most original animation of the David Hockney logo.

The Prize

The winner will be invited to spend a day with David Hockney at his studio in Bridlington. The winning entry will be screened at the BFI South Bank and will introduce the ceremony for the 2009 And/Or Book Awards on Thursday 23rd April 2009.

Runners-up may also have their work screened at BFI Southbank.

All travel expenses will be paid by the Foundation.

The judges will include David Hockney, David Sproxton (co-founder and co-owner of Aardman Films), and Amanda Nevill (Director British Film Institute).

How to Enter

Download the following documents for full details:

Download Registration Form (pdf)

Download Competition Guidelines (pdf)

Download Competition Terms & Conditions (pdf)

Entrants should download a zipped folder of logo graphics for use in their animations. The folder contains Adobe Illustrator EPS files for versions 2, 3 and 4 of the Adobe Creative Suite, together with a pdf.

Download Logo Folder (4 files)

Competition closing date: Tuesday 31st March 2009.

Contact

Specialist PR agency Colman Getty has once again been appointed to handle the PR for the awards. All public relations matters should be directed to:

Chris Baker, Account Executive – Culture; Colman Getty Consultancy

chris@colmangetty.co.uk Tel: 00 44 20 7631 2666; Fax: 00 44 20 7631 2699

Other queries should be sent to the Awards Coordinator, Sarah Jackson. sarah.jackson@airdesk.com

From this year the awards are to be known by the Christian name of their founder, the prolific Hungarian publisher and dedicated founder of Focal Press, Andor Kraszna-Krausz. A new logo has been drawn by David Hockney as part of the rebrand.

Established in 1985, the And/or Book Awards seek to celebrate excellence in photography and moving image publishing and raise the profile of the sector. Two separate  prizes are given for moving image (including film, television and new media) and for photography books, offering publishers an excellent opportunity to showcase their leading titles of the past year.

All titles published or distributed in the UK between 1 January and 31 December 2008 are eligible for submission to the And/or Book Awards 2009. The deadline for entries is 25 November 2008. After this date, two panels of leading critics, practitioners and professionals working in the fields of photography and the moving image will choose two shortlists to be announced in March 2009.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony in April 2009, where they will share a total prize fund of up to £10,000. All books submitted will join the Kraszna-Krausz collection of photography and moving image books held in the National Media Museum in Bradford.

More guidelines on eligibility and submission can be found at www.kraszna-krausz.org.uk. The judging panel for the 2009 awards will be announced in the late autumn.

For more information please contact

Chris Baker or Truda Spruyt at Colman Getty Consultancy

020 7631 2666

chris@colmangetty.co.uk / truda@colmangetty.co.uk

Winner: Best Moving Image Book – David Curtis, A History of Artists’ Film and Video in Britain, 1897-2004 (BFI).

A groundbreaking work which puts the recent achievements of famous artists like Douglas Gordon and Gillian Wearing into their long-term historical context.

Co-Winner: Best Photography Book – Matthew S. Witkovsky, Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945 (Thames and Hudson).

A beautifully illustrated monograph describing the cultural background of such 20th century masters as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and André Kertesz and which casts light on the wider historical context of Andor Kraszna-Krausz, publishing pioneer and originator of the Kraszna-Krausz Awards

Co-Winner: Best Photography Book – Roger Taylor, Impressed By Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (Yale University Press).

The culmination of decades of research by a distinguished photohistorian, this lavishly illustrated volume definitively documents the aesthetic and technical development of early Victorian paper negatives and prints

The Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards, the UK’s leading prize for books on photography and the moving image, were today announced at the London Book Fair. For more than twenty years these awards have been given to outstanding books in the fields of photography and the moving image, which are sure to make original and lasting contributions to their respective disciplines. The Kraszna-Krausz Foundation also offers grants to assist in the development and completion of new or unfinished projects, works or literature in the fields of photography and the moving image.

This year, three books share a prize fund of £10,000. Two photography titles receive £2,500 each, being joint photography books of the year. Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945 and Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860, based on landmark exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, are beautifully produced and illustrated studies of their subjects. Impressed by Light is a landmark study of the early years of British photography, a crucial period in establishing the visual vocabulary as well as the technical possibilities of the medium. The rich artistic legacy of interwar central Europe is the subject of Foto, a lavish document of an under-researched but vitally important region and period.

The winner of the best moving image book, receiving £5000, is the first-ever comprehensive history of film and video as used by artists in Britain. Written by a practising artist, curator and academic, David Curtis’s A History of Artists’ Film and Video in Britain, 1897-2004 puts the Turner Prize-winning work of such contemporary visual artists as Gillian Wearing, Douglas Gordon and Mark Wallinger in the context of more than a century of artists’ film and video in the UK.

Judges’ and Trustees’ Comments on the Winning Books:

Colin Ford CBE, Chair of Trustees of the Kraszna-Krausz Foundation, said:

These three titles demonstrate that the state of publishing on photography, film, video and digital media is very healthy. Our distinguished judges had to make very tough choices but have, I believe, come up with three books that offer vital insights, in their different ways, into the progress of the arts of photography and film from their very beginnings to today.

Nick James, Editor of Sight & Sound and chair of judges for the moving image category, said:

After considerable debate, we unanimously decided that A History of Artists’ Film and Video in Britain should win. Curtis’ knowledge of his subject is as close to complete as can be imagined, yet he has the knack of conveying this erudition with such an infectious enthusiasm – tracing and describing the lesser-known currents of British film with such a sense of fun and experiment – that you wish you had been there at every stage. The book is superbly and accessibly illustrated and designed and is a real achievement on every level.

Sarah Jackson, freelance picture editor and photography category judge, continued:

The two winners of the Kraszna-Krausz award for photography books explore very different areas of the history of photography with passionate engagement and considerable depth of understanding. Both are models of scholarship, combining fascinating and readable narratives with a superb and inspiring selection of illustrations.

Roger Taylor’s Impressed by Light brings to life the story of British paper-to-paper photography – the invention of William Henry Fox Talbot – through the 1840s and 1850s, revealing remarkable aesthetic as well as technical achievements. Matthew Witkovsky’s Foto ably demonstrates the enormous social and political upheavals in European history. These two books are filled with ideas and imagery that provide considerable and ever relevant intellectual and visual stimulation.

Download the full press release (pdf)

Shortlists include:

• Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945, which establishes interwar Central Europe as the cradle of modern photography
• Ingmar Bergman: Cinematic Philosopher, the most complete and sophisticated analysis of one of the masters of world cinema, and the first survey to be published after Bergman’s death last year
• Definitive accounts of the careers of Walt Disney, Stanley Kubrick and Lee Miller

Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award Shortlist

• Michael Chanan, The Politics of Documentary (BFI)
• David Curtis, A History of Artists’ Film and Video in Britain, 1897-2004 (BFI)
• Hamid Dabashi, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema (Verso)
• Neal Gabler, Walt Disney: The Biography (Aurum)
• Irving Singer, Ingmar Bergman, Cinematic Philosopher: Reflections on His Creativity (MIT Press)
• James Naremore, On Kubrick (BFI)

Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Award Shortlist

• Sarah Greenough and Diane Waggoner (ed.), The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888-1978 (Princeton University Press)
• Mark Haworth-Booth, The Art of Lee Miller (V&A)
• Ken Jacobson, Odalisques and Arabesques: Orientalist Photography, 1839-1925 (Quaritch)
• Stephen Shore, The Nature of Photographs (Phaidon)
• Roger Taylor, Impressed By Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 (Yale University Press)
• Matthew S. Witkovsky, Foto: Modernity in Central Europe 1918-1945 (Thames & Hudson, UK, National Gallery of Art Washington, US)

The dozen titles on the shortlist are notable for their outstanding quality and their contributions to knowledge in their respective fields. The diversity of subjects and formats included on the shortlists is also striking. The moving image category features books on both Hollywood and world cinema, together with titles dealing with animation, documentary and film and video art, and works which blend biographical, theoretical and historical approaches. The geographical and historical breadth of the photography shortlist is equally impressive, with monographic studies of photographic practice in America, the Middle East, the UK and Central Europe ranging from the birth of the medium to the modern age.

The shortlists were drawn up by two separate panels of leading critics, practitioners and professionals working in the fields of photography and moving image (including film, television and new media). The winners will be announced at a ceremony at the London Book Fair on Monday 14th April 2008, where they will share a total prize fund of up to £10,000.

The judges for the 2008 photography awards are:

• Philippe Garner (International Specialist Head of the Photographs Department at Christie’s)
• Sarah Jackson (Publishing Picture Editor)
• Michael Rand (Art Director, formerly of the Sunday Times Magazine and Mirabella Magazine New York)

The judges for the 2008 moving image awards are:

• Nick James (Editor, Sight and Sound)
• Lynda Myles (Independent film producer and Head of Directing Fiction, National Film and Television School)
• Jonathan Powell (Professor of Media Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London, former Controller of BBC One)

Nick James, Editor of Sight and Sound commented: “This was an enjoyably difficult selection process with a huge variety of works on the moving image to consider, and a feeling that they were mostly at a similar level of accomplishment. The judges had biographies, career surveys of directors, exhibition catalogues and artworks, political studies, image theory works, film monographs, how-to guides, film studies textbooks, anthologies, psychology- ethnography- and philosophy-based film books, and assorted histories to consider. Nonetheless, the shortlist of six truly fantastic books was arrived at fairly swiftly.”

Sarah Jackson, freelance picture editor, added: “The judges are delighted to say that the selection of the short list was not easy. The books submitted were very wide-ranging in subject matter and approach, and included a variety of gems of one kind or another – from monographs and portfolio books that could be haunting or entrancing to valuable, tightly focused investigations of specific aspects of photography’s history. The eventual shortlist was strong on historical research and analysis, a reflection of the impressive work being undertaken, frequently under the auspices of major institutions, but also a tribute to the determination of committed individuals.”

Judges’ Biographies – Photography

• Philippe Garner is a Director of Christie’s and the firm’s International Head of Photographs and of 20th Century Decorative Art & Design. He has been professionally involved with photographs since 1971, when, soon after joining Sotheby’s, he co-ordinated the historic first auction of the modern photographic market. Since that date he has always remained an innovator in the field. His passion for photographs has also earned him recognition through his contributions to the subject as a curator, critic and historian, with exhibitions in London (including the V&A and The Photographers’ Gallery), Paris and Tokyo. He has published books on Cecil Beaton and John Cowan and numerous essays on aspects of photo-history.
• Sarah Jackson has been in publishing for over thirty years. Having run the Picture Research Department at Orbis Publishing she is now an independent consultant specialising in photographic books, developing illustrated book projects with prospective authors for publishers including Harper Collins, Orion and the Random House Group. Her most recent books include ‘Eye of War’ (published by Orion), and ‘Modern France’ (by Flammarion).
• Michael Rand was for 30 years the Art Director of the Sunday Times Magazine during its most influential years. He was responsible for introducing the work of photographers such as Diane Arbus, Don McCullin and Eve Arnold. He was also art director of Mirabella magazine, which was launched in the USA in 1989.His many awards include one in 1989 for design from the International Centre of Photography in New York. He is the UK Chairman of the World Press Foundation and has edited and designed many books with photographers as diverse as Arnold Newman and Sebastiao Salgado.

Judges’ Biographies – Moving Image

• Nick James has been the editor of Sight and Sound, the world’s leading English language film magazine, since 1996. Having trained in Fine Art at St. Martin’s School of Art and Walthamstow School of Art, his freelance career as a critic on film, literature and art led to contributions to such publications as The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, Vogue, Time Out, The London Review of Booksand The Literary Review, as well as 2002’s BBC documentary British Cinema: The End of the Affair.
• Lynda Myles is presently Head of Fiction Direction at the National Film and Television School, following an illustrious career within the British film industry. She was Director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival for eight years (followed by two years as Director and Curator of Film at the Pacific Film Archive, University of California, Berkeley), after which she went on to have an impressive career as an independent film producer. Having produced films such as 1985’s classic thriller Defence of the Realm, Alan Parker’s multi-BAFTA-winning The Commitments (1991), Stephen Frears’s The Van (1996) and Chen Kaige’s Killing Me Softly (2002), she assumed her present role in 2004.
• Jonathan Powell has had one of the most distinguished careers in broadcasting, having produced some of the most significant programmes in British television history, and assumed major roles in both the BBC and commercial television. As a producer, he was responsible for a number of award-winning and groundbreaking dramas, including the BBC version of John Le Carre’s ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ with Alec Guinness. He was Head of Drama for the BBC and went on to become Controller of BBC 1. After leaving the BBC, he worked at Carlton TV as Director of Drama, and he currently holds the position of Professor of Media Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London.