Doug Spowart

A picture is worth 10,000 words: the photographer and the artists' book

Digital technology is blending disciplines that once were quite separate. While photographs have populated the artists' book space for some time, they were usually images generated by artists whose principal discipline was something else - printmaker, painter, designer or poet. Now photographers whose past practice curiously has embraced story telling in the form of exhibitions, photo-essays and wedding albums, are beginning to find their way and recognition in the artists' book genre. This paper will discuss the enabling digital technology, referencing the photo image in artists' book history, and salient issues of the photographer's own practice.

Doug Spowart is a photographer who has made artists' books since the late 1980's. The National Library of Australia as well as State and regional artists' book collections has collected his work. His current academic studies, a (PhD) at James Cook University, are centred on questions of digital technology, artists' books, and the landscape.