THE WORLD'S FIRST PHOTOBOOK WAS BLUE

Albarran Cabrera
THE WORLD'S FIRST PHOTOBOOK WAS BLUE

Photographs: Albarran Cabrera

Text: Albarrán Cabrera and Lyle Rexer

Publisher: Ira Stehmann, IBASHO & the(M)éditions

82 pages

Year: 2021

ISBN: 9791095424260

Comments: Hardcover, metal spiral binding, 32x21cm, colors photographs, designed by Studio Des Signes. 3 different covers included in one book.

"Photography is not the thing. It is the thing that gets us to the thing.
Atkins used photography to illustrate nature and its structure. In a similar way, we use photography to illustrate reality and its structure. The possibility of having a tool to investigate reality is what first drew us to photography. We discovered that by using this medium we can nurture our interest and have a better understanding not only of perceived reality, but of the ‘structure of reality’, ‘the why of things’. Photography is, for us, the perfect philosophical tool to learn more about the universe as a logical and architectural conception: the recognition of an order among individual pieces in which each piece is also illuminated by the arrangement of the whole." - Albarrán Cabrera

Albarrán Cabrera's newest monograph “The World’s First Photobook was Blue” is not a book about what Albarrán Cabrera does, but why they do it. A book without a beginning or and end, without a specific cover (that is why this book has three), and where the text talks about why they photograph and not the images per se.

The title is a nod to Anna Atkins, the binding a nod to Brassaï and the entire book is a homage to this deceptively simple but really complex medium which is photography.

The printing on metallic paper gives a magical, dimensional feeling to the colors and images.