The emotional impact of photography books

There is no visual discipline more popular than photography: anyone can express their idea or vision of real or imaginary worlds through the language of photography.

Photography documents. Photography narrates. Everyone, thanks to photography, can observe and study the world even without physically walking through it.

Photography immortalises time that flees: the carefree laughter of a child, a breathtaking landscape, a dinner with friends, a painting on display in a museum, the colours at sunset and everything that can be identified with beauty and emotions.

But not only that: photography is a witness to events, happenings, facts. Photography reveals, even in the form of a denunciation, what is happening thousands of kilometres away, on the other side of the planet. This is why photography has a high symbolic, narrative and communicative value.

Why are we so fascinated by it?

There is an aura of mystery in every self-respecting photograph: it is the gaze with which the photographer has observed reality. Each shot reveals a unique and exclusive way of framing the object. We can say that the points of view with which to interpret what is in front of the lens are infinite. Among the incredible number of images we are subjected to, there is always one that captures our attention more than others.

It is not just a question of aesthetics (I like it, I don’t like it), but rather it is as if something in the photo comes alive and manages to give us information, to represent a state, to surprise us or, as Roland Barthes would have said, to ‘sting’ us. 

The strength of a photo is a delicate alchemy of visual, emotional, rational, creative elements. In order to obtain a photography book that respects the author’s expressiveness, originality and skill, great care must be taken in choosing the paper, the printing characteristics, any ennobling and the type of binding.
We offer photographers and publishers a first-class service thanks to the exclusive printing techniques we have developed:

— the innovative Power Black Print enables the reproduction of black-and-white images and guarantees an astonishing effect of depth and three-dimensionality to black and the entire grey scale, no longer only on coated papers, but also on high-quality uncoated papers, printed in duo- or tritone colors;
— the Premium Color Print that allows the use of vegetable inks for printing on uncoated papers, ensuring maximum color fastness, brilliance and tone, even with high dithering; 
— the Emotion Color Print that gives three-dimensionality to printing on coated papers.

Excellence in photography book production encompasses all stages, from file preparation to press start-up, including continuous quality monitoring through inline press control equipment.

For Grafiche Antiga, state-of-the-art technology and craftsmanship attention to detail are the key words in every project.