Three Books

For decades now, Dutch photographer Machiel Botman has occupied a unique, somewhat elusive position in the international photography world. Once every ten years Botman publishes a major book of photographs in which he strings together autonomous snapshots to create a visual a rhythmic, associative narrative. Three Books is the first overview of the work of Machiel Botman, from a childhood image, White Cat (1965) to today. Three Books was built around Botman’s published book Heartbeat (Volute 1994), Rainchild (Schaden and Le Point du Jour 2004) and One Tree (Nazraeli Press 2011) and includes photographs from each as well as many never published. Also included are images of some of Botman’s numerous handmade book dummies. Three Books was made on the occasion of the exhibition Machiel Botman at Fotomuseum Den Haag, The Netherlands from 17 May to 24 August 2014. It was printed in Amsterdam by RobStolk, on uncoated 130 grams paper for the duotones and full color single images, and on 95 grams uncoated paper for the full color reproductions of the book dummies. The printing press that was used dries the ink while printing, using UV technology. The result is is a high contrast of beautiful quality, which previously was difficult to reach using uncoated papers.