Image of the Day

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A spread from photographer Christian Patterson's book Redheaded Peckerwood. Patterson self-published 10 copies of the book last year and a newly expanded edition is now available from MACK.

Christian Patterson's Redheaded Peckerwood retraces the steps of 19 year old Charles Starkweather and 14 year old Caril Ann Fugate who murdered ten people, including Fugate's family, during a three day killing spree across the mid-West in 1958. The true crime story was the basis for Terrance Mallick's masterpiece "Badlands" which had a profound aesthetic influence on Patterson as he matured as a photographer.

Beginning ominously with the tragic handwritten confession by Chuck and Caril, Patterson revisits the locations of the crimes and retraces their flight across Nebraska and Wyoming. By incorporating forensic photography, artifacts and press photos from the period with landscapes and still-lifes of his own Patterson weaves an enigmatic narrative deliberately mixing fact and fiction, past and present, myth and reality.

The book is presented as a sort of vintage crime dossier, including three documents found in the wallet of one of the victims that have been reconstructed and bound in. They serve as further evidence of the senselessness of the crimes and the rich mythology that has evolved from these random artifacts.

If you're in New York, stop by Dashwood Books tomorrow from 6–8PM to pick up a signed copy of Redheaded Peckerwood.

Knowledge Knowledge

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Tomorrow night from 6–8PM at Dashwood Books in New York, photographer Malerie Marder will be signing copies of her first book, Carnal Knowledge, published by Violette Editions.

A seminal early experience for Malerie Marder was when a family friend invited her to photograph her with her lover, naked and in the anonymous setting of a motel room. This set the tone for Marder's work for the next decade. Her photographs of nudes are composed simply, her subjects sitting plainly near the centre of the frame, often set against the bleak anonymity of motel rooms, their impassive gazes almost daring a viewer to interpret their bodies. Beautifully illustrated with more than 70 works by Marder – described by Charlotte Cotton in her introduction as an 'episodic drama of adjacencies' – Carnal Knowledge also contains a preface by Gregory Crewdson, a text by novelist James Ellroy, short stories inspired by Marder's works by A. M. Homes, James Frey and Bruce Wagner, as well as a written and photographic correspondence between Marder and Philip-Lorca diCorcia.

Here are the first images of Marder's I noticed, from "The Others," an October 2007 New York Times Magazine story styled by Anne Christensen.

There are a lot of great fashion stories in the world but this one stood out to me because of its beautiful color, perfect/creepy compositions and styling, and exceptionally well-executed conceptual narrative. (Click here for more.)

I'm looking forward to checking out Marder's book. Click here to pre-order from Dashwood, or if you're in NY head over to the shop tomorrow night from 6–8PM.

Bookshelf Adjustment

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New Ryan McGinley book coming out later this month:
Life Adjustment Center, published by Dashwood Books in association with the exhibition running through December 11 at Ratio 3 in San Francisco:

Everything is Everything

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Pretty Much Everything 1985–2010: The Newspaper Collector's Edition is a large-format, loose-leaf newsprint book featuring 25 years of work by photographers Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin – designed and published by by M/M (Paris) and printed on the occasion of Inez & Vinoodh's exhibition at Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam. In the US it's available in limited quantities from my favorite bookstore in New York, Dashwood Books. (You can also order and get info from mmparis.com.)

Need vs. Want

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Boxed facsimile of Avalanche issues 1–13, $150 at Dashwood Books. Need.