AN INAUGURAL PHOTOBOOK FROM GIBSON’S LUSTRUM PRESS, DAVID SEYMOUR’S LOUD SONG, 1971

SEYMOUR, Daniel. A Loud Song. (New York): Lustrum, 1971. Square quarto, original stiff photographic wrappers, staple bound as issued. $750.

First edition of Seymour’s scarce photobook, an influential diarist work “firmly in the personal documentary stream-of-consciousness mode” of Ralph Gibson’s innovative Lustrum Press (Parr & Badger), with over 70 black-and-white photogravures.

An inaugural photobook published by Ralph Gibson’s influential Gibson Press, published the same year as Gibson’s own Somnambulist, Daniel Seymour’s Loud Song exemplifies a turning point in which photographers could now “have control over their own photobooks.” Like much of Lustrum’s list, Seymour’s work “was firmly in the personal documentary, stream-of-consciousness mode” (Parr & Badger II:12; I:237). Scarce first edition, published in softcover only. Open Book, 280.

Images fresh and clean; lightest soiling to fragile, unrestored wrappers. A near-fine copy.