CHR I S
BOOT
jumping the fence
Andrea Blanch: So Aperture started publishing sixty-two
years ago, correct?
Chris Boot: Yes, that’s right. I’ll give you the history: The idea
of Aperture came out of the Aspen Photo Conference on the
future of photography in 1951. One of the things that conference identified was the need for a magazine like Camera
Work, which had been key for the photography world early
in the century, and there was nothing happening like that
then in 1951. Aperture was initially a text magazine; there
were very few photographs in the first issues. It was about
a language that began to talk about the art of photography.
Nobody was writing and cultivating the language. The first
book Aperture published was a special issue of the magazine bound with hard covers and published simultaneously
with a book about Edward Weston. And that became the beginning of the book program.
Why do you think Aperture brought you in?
My history is in photography and publishing. I have a mixture of public and educational experience, as well as publishing business knowledge. I think a combination of that
made me appealing.
You held down a few positions. Why the different changes?
Well, I started in the public sector in a photography education organization called The Photo Co-op (now Photofusion).
That was my grounding in photography. After six years, I
wanted to get involved internationally. This was a very local
organization, you have to understand. I spent a lot of my time
working in the grant world at that time and I really wanted
to work in a more commercial market. So, I went to work
for Magnum Photos, initially selling features. I was putting
feature ideas together, selling photographer’s ideas to magazines and publications and graduated from there to become
Portrait by Andrea Blanch.
the director in London. I think it was nearly nine years that I
was working for Magnum, and I had become, in that period,
very seriously interested in publishing. I had been working
on books and putting book projects together with photographers and came to the end of my contract, and chose at
that point to go off to Phaidon Press, which was an amazing moment. I had been working with Phaidon on behalf of
Magnum for several years and then, as it were, I jumped the
fence. They were putting a lot of resources into building their
photography list. That was a very exciting moment.
When I was at Paris Photo fair everybody was talking
about MACK. Why do you think they are receiving so
much attention?
MACK is certainly a contender for one of the best photobook
publishers out there today. They are brutally simple artist
books. There’s usually no text, and very little paraphernalia
to the books. There’s a strong visual concept to each book
they do. Michael Mack is one of the smartest guys in the
photo book publishing industry now. They’ve also won a lot
of awards for best books. They’re doing really great work.
What do you think makes a good publisher?
A reputation matters in terms of attracting photographers
and artists who want to work with you. Having a clear vision
of what you’re doing is also important. One of the ways in
which we’re different from MACK, is we have much more of
an educational role in what we’re doing. We want to illuminate people about the medium, its history and future. Text is
much more important to us. The photographic content in the
magazine, frankly, is not that dissim ilar to what other photo
magazines are doing. There are lots of great visual magazines
out there, but where we are distinct is with the text. We use
the tagline for the magazine: speaking the language of photography. The magazine began as a vehicle to develop the