For literary agents and publishers

 

The enclosed PDF is a preliminary working version showing how I currently envision the finished book. Its purpose is not to prescribe the final design, but to demonstrate how photographs, text, quotations, and multimedia material are intended to interact.
 

1. Design

I have laid out the book myself in InDesign, using the basic grid and typefaces selected by graphic designer Carl-H.K. Zakrisson.

The present format is 9.6 × 10.8 inches (24.5 × 27.4 cm), with Kaius Pro Medium for the main text and Acumin Variable Concept for headings and related elements.

The layout should be regarded as a working model. I am fully open to changes in design, sequencing, image size, typography, and page extent in collaboration with the publisher and designer.

 

2. Cover

The present cover is only a preliminary sketch made by me. The final cover would, of course, be professionally developed by Carl Zakrisson or a designer chosen by the publisher.

As flaps may prove too expensive in a book of this size, the proposed flap texts are presently placed on pages 1 and 502.

 

3. Images

Some photographs in the draft PDF appear grainy or soft because they are based on temporary low-resolution files.

For final production, the book will use the highest-quality available scans and professionally processed image files. The intention is to produce the photographs to the standard of a high-quality art photobook.

 

4. A Hybrid: Art Photobook, Memoir and Historical Record

The original American Pictures was widely used in teaching, particularly at American universities. This new book therefore retains an educational and historical dimension, tracing developments in Black and white America from the civil rights era to the present.

At the same time, many of the photographs have since entered a different context through museum exhibitions, galleries and art publications. I therefore want the strongest images to have the scale, space and visual presence associated with an art photobook.

The idea of combining the narrative and political qualities of American Pictures with the visual ambition of my later art publications arose partly through my gallery, V1 Gallery in Copenhagen, which has represented and exhibited my photographs and helped organize museum exhibitions in Europe.

The book therefore draws on two traditions: the socially engaged narrative of American Pictures and the more spacious presentation of works such as my Steidl photobook United States 1970–1975 and museum catalogues including the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art publication.

Together with newly added material on white hate groups, later developments in American society, and my continuing relationships with many of the people photographed, this has brought the present draft to approximately 500 pages.

The final length, selection of chapters, image sizes and sequencing will naturally depend on editorial priorities, production costs, grant funding and discussion with each publisher.

 

5. Alternative Photographs and Layouts

I made the present selection of photographs myself. Curators who have worked with my archive in different countries have often made very different choices, and another editor or designer might equally find stronger alternatives.

I have therefore assembled selections of additional photographs that could replace or supplement images in the present layout:

Alternatives for first part of the book

Alternatives for the second part of the book

I welcome suggestions concerning image selection, sequencing and layout. The present version should be understood as a proposal rather than a fixed design.

 

6. Text and Editing

The Danish text has been edited by Søren Møller Christensen and Lone Fatum, and the English text by Vincent Czyz.

An earlier version of the book was laid out in Times. After changing to the wider Kaius Pro typeface, I subsequently shortened much of the text by approximately five percent to preserve the page structure.

These reductions were made at different stages and may not all be equally successful. I therefore welcome editorial comments, corrections and suggestions for further tightening.

Because translations vary considerably in length, the French, Dutch, Italian and particularly German editions will require some adjustments in typography or page layout.

A publisher may also wish to commission a foreword from a recognized contemporary Black writer, artist or cultural figure.

One possibility is Arthur Jafa, whose work has been influenced by American Pictures. Another approach would be to invite a contemporary local Black writer or activist to respond critically to the work, as Sandra Ruffin did for one of my museum catalogues. I deliberately encouraged her to be as critical as possible.

Because the photographs can be interpreted very differently when separated from their historical and personal context, such a contemporary voice could provide a valuable dialogue with the book.

 

7. The Spreads

The book can be read continuously as the story of my encounters with Black and white America over more than fifty years.

Individual spreads generally begin with an experience or photograph from my years as a vagabond and then follow the subject forward through history, later encounters, research or reflection - even where I was not personally able to photograph subsequent developments.

At the same time, many readers of an art photo book will browse rather than read every page consecutively. Each spread therefore has a headline and, in most cases, a quotation from a Black writer, artist, musician, activist or historical figure. These quotations provide another entry point into the subject and place my own observations in dialogue with Black voices.

This is particularly important because photographs used allegorically can easily be misunderstood when removed from their surrounding narrative. The explanatory quotations and captions are therefore an integral part of the book rather than merely decorative additions.

 

8. QR Codes and the Book as a Multimedia Work

I have tried to preserve something of the multimedia character of American Pictures, which originally existed not only as a book but also as a long photographic slideshow accompanied by music and recorded voices.

QR codes allow the printed book to open into this larger archive.

Readers can use them to:

• hear music connected with songs reproduced or discussed in the book;

• view extended photographic sequences;

• listen to original interviews with people portrayed;

• see later interviews recorded years or decades afterwards;

• follow updates on people's lives;

• and, in some cases, hear the original recordings behind quotations printed in the book.

The QR material here is therefore not simply supplementary entertainment. It also provides documentation and historical continuity.

 

9. Fifty Years of Follow-up

One of the unusual aspects of my work is that I continued visiting and corresponding with many of the people I first photographed in the 1970s.

In lectures I was consequently able to follow some lives from childhood through adulthood and, in many cases, until death. Their stories became a way of observing American history not merely through statistics but through individual lives unfolding over decades.

I originally hoped to include many more of these later developments in the printed book. Because of the book's already considerable length, much of this material will instead be made accessible through QR codes.

A reader seeing a photograph can therefore immediately discover what happened to that person ten, twenty or forty years later.

For example, the book links to later material about Renee Yates, whom I first photographed many years before.

The same system gives access to songs, interviews and original recordings. In particularly difficult passages - including testimony about racist violence and murder - the recordings also allow readers to hear the source material directly rather than relying solely on my transcription or interpretation.

The digital archive is still being expanded and will continue to be developed before publication.

 

A Flexible Working Proposal

Above all, this PDF should be regarded as a detailed prototype.

It demonstrates what I believe the material can become, but I do not regard the present selection, length or design as untouchable. I would welcome a publisher's experience in deciding which chapters and photographs should remain, which might be reduced or omitted, and where a different layout could make the book stronger.

My hope is to preserve the unusual combination at the heart of the project: an intimate photographic record of individual lives, a fifty-year personal journey through Black and white American history, and an art photobook in which the strongest photographs are finally given the space they deserve.

I look forward to developing the final book in close collaboration with each publisher.

 

Sincerely,
Jacob Holdt