Published by Prestel, 1st edition (May 20, 2010) - Hardcover, 144 pages - ISBN 978-3791350523.
"Allen Ginsberg began photographing in 1953 when he purchased a small,
secondhand Kodak camera. For the next 10 years he took photos of
himself, friends, and lovers, including writers Jack Kerouac, William
Burroughs, and Gregory Corso as well as Beat personality Neal Cassady.
He abandoned photography in 1963 and took it up again in the 1980s, when
he was encouraged by Berenice Abbott and Robert Frank to reprint his
earlier work and make new portraits; these included more images of
longtime friends as well as acquaintances such as Larry Rivers,
Francesco Clemente, and Bob Dylan. Ginsberg's photos form a compelling
portrait of the Beat and counterculture generation from the 1950s to the
1990s. His photographs and the extensive inscriptions he added to them
years later preserve what he referred to as “the sacredness of the
moment,” the often joyous communion of friends and the poignancy of
looking back to intensely felt times. More than 70 prints are
brilliantly reproduced in this book, accompanied by an essay exploring
Ginsberg's photography in relation to his poetry and other photographers
of the time, a chronology of his photographic activity, and selections
from an interview with Ginsberg in 1991."