FIRST EDITION OF I WANT TO TAKE PICTURE, ONE OF ONE THOUSAND COPIES PRINTED, INSCRIBED BY BILL BURKE

BURKE, Bill. I Want to Take Picture. Atlanta: Nexus Press, 1987. Folio, original laminated boards. $2600.

First edition, one of only 1000 copies printed of Burke’s photographic account of his travels in Southeast Asia, inscribed on the title page: “For Norman. Bill Burke.”

Part diary, part scrapbook, part photo essay, in I Want to Take Picture “Burke’s black-and white Polaroid and 35mm Leica photographs are surrounded by colorful cigarette packs, beer labels, bottle caps, massage parlor come-ons, and scrawled journal pages that add a hands-on immediacy to the spreads. Rather than feeling added-on or unfinished, this gonzo layout is entirely appropriate to the contents of the book… The triumph of this book is that it does manage to reflect the mad experience of traveling in Southeast Asia, while still reflecting on what it all means” (Roth, 258).

A fine inscribed copy.