Cold Green Tea Press

January 1, 2014

Dreams about John Cage and Butterflies now available!

Cold Green Tea Press is pleased to announce that limited copies of David Agasi's Dreams about John Cage and Butterflies are now available for sale! This book is a followup to Living with Myself Forgetting, his previous photo-book from Cold Green Tea Press.

You can see more of David's black and white film photography on his website.

May 4, 2013

Six Questions for David Agasi on Dreams about John Cage and Butterflies

Photograph of David Agasi © 2013 Bradley Hanson

Cold Green Tea Press is excited to announce that

Dreams about John Cage and Butterflies, a new book of photographs by David Agasi, will be published in the near future.

Here is a brief interview with David on his recent work and the changes to his photography since his CGTP published his first book, Living with Myself Forgetting.

1. What precipitated the change to square format?

There should be no secret about the images; they are still 35mm and I cropped them in order to bring a larger sense of focus and intensity to the objects within the frame. As I am a fan of medium format photography, but have very limited time and resources to follow that path, the experience I have with 35mm pushed me back into viewing the square as a very attractive alternative to rectangular negatives. This idea also stemmed from looking at so many LP and CD covers and trying to create a specific atmosphere in that limited size and perspective. I wanted to line up a meaningful series where all the images in the book were harmonically linked.

2. How has your photography changed since your first book?

Not sure, because there are still a lot of undeveloped negatives that go back to the beginning of 2012. One reason for this, aside from the expense of developing film in Japan, is that I like to forget almost entirely what actually happened. That way, when I finally get the proof sheets in my hands from any number of photo shoots, the memories themselves have already morphed and changed over time. I want the images I take to be as much a surprise to me as they might be for anyone else. I don't want to elicit too much control or feel that at the time of shooting I knew what I was after or what I was doing. There is a kind of pre-prepared aloofness that I want to nurture and elicit in my work. I want the atmosphere to overshadow the intention.

3. What decisions do you make in framing your pictures?

Again, very hard to answer because most of the decisions are unconscious. I do want the actual "essence" of whatever I photograph to be the main dalliance, in order to set the mood. Almost all the images are, naturally, rectangular, so it isn't until I am in the darkroom that I decide to crop certain parts of the images out. I don't usually take a lot of time deciding what should be altered, or which images should be made into squares because the overall composition in any negative will tell me whether it's going to be successful as a square or not. Most rectangular images can't be cropped without leaving out something important, so I have to be very careful.

4. What qualities in people, physical and otherwise, are you drawn to photograph?

Most anything. My work is primarily about two things - whatever the subject brings to light, and the light itself. In most cases, I can only invest in what I am doing with the latter. The subject, its own power of persuasiveness or mystery, will dictate whether the image has a shot at remaining in the viewer's memory. Most images fail to do this. As always, after making countless photos, there are only a few worth investing in. Most of the fat has to be trimmed way, way down. Human bodies and faces are still one of the highlights of the natural world, as are objects that have been discarded, thrown away or abandoned. That must be why I am so drawn to trashed umbrellas and left-for-dead bicycles in Japan. So many of these objects no longer have owners, or never did to begin with. They are ghosly things in an of themselves.

5. How did you come to be a photographer?

My first photo teacher, when I was a sophomore at college, was incredibly inspiring and I really felt comfortable photographing people from the beginning, so that's the long and short of it. Besides that, I didn't think much about it. In fact, there were periods where I didn't even have a working camera. Sometimes the camera equipment I did have was not particularly trustworthy, but I felt this added to the "chance operations" side of my process, not really being so attached to any one outcome. I consider photography to be a kind of reverse iceburg, where the riches you can harvest are not hiding beneath the water but are instead right there on the surface waiting to be plucked. The stuff beneath the surface, that 90%, is just throwaway. If you develop a system of editing your work where you maintain high standards, it's easier to see what matters at the processed negative stage. After that, it might be helpful to ask someone whose sensibility you trust to also aid in editing, as I did with this book.

6. What advantages do you have as an analogue photographer in an increasingly digital world?

I like to make my images slowly, so I give a lot of the process away to waiting, being patient, and allowing whatever truths to surface naturally. Since I don't get a chance to edit my work the day I shoot it (or even the month or season for that matter) as digital photographers do, I have to be open to surprise and occasional disappointment in as open a way as possible. If you plant a specific kind of flower and cultivate it throughout its seasonal life, you are likely to get positive results. That's also the way I see film photography, as a kind of botanical exercise that really isn't as technical as the digital world has now made it out to be. There is still something inexplicably organic and mysterious about analogue, so I don't feel any reason at the moment to change formats. I would like to concentrate on 35mm film for a few more years at least.

(Dreaming about John Cage and Butterflies is forthcoming from Cold Green Tea Press in spring 2013)

February 27, 2013

Amnesia Hat 10 on the way

Copies of Amnesia Hat 10 have been printed and are in the process of being assembled! I'll post the link to this site once they are available for sale.

January 9, 2013

Two new books for January/February

Cold Green Tea Press has two new books scheduled for the near future. The first, Amnesia Hat 10, will be the last book in this photo book series and is set to be published at the end of January. The next book, tentatively titled Dreams of John Cage and Butterflies by David Agasi, is scheduled for mid-February. Stay tuned for more updates.

November 19, 2012

Amnesia Hat 09 is available for sale!

October 27, 2012

Amnesia Hat 09 coming out in November

I've just printed a few copies of Amnesia Hat 09 and am thrilled to make it available for sale in early November.

September 16, 2012

Amnesia Hat 08: April-June 2012

Copies of Amnesia Hat 08: April-June 2012 are now available from Cold Green Tea Press.

September 7, 2012

Amnesia hat 08 printing this week

Back (L) and front (R) cover for Amnesia Hat 08

August 9, 2012

Amnesia Hat 08 in progress

Amnesia Hat 08 in progress
Originally uploaded by cold green tea press

Amnesia Hat 08 is in production, and will be available in the near future.

scraps

books from scraps
Originally uploaded by cold green tea press

I put together some tiny books assembled from leftover bits of Amnesia Hat, What We Miss When We Miss, and other projects.

May 8, 2012

Amnesia Hat 06 & 07

Amnesia Hat 06 and 07 are now available!

Amnesia Hat 06: October-December 2011

AH06

$10+1 shipping US

Amnesia Hat 07: January-March 2012

AH07
$10+1 shipping US

January 29, 2012

coming soon in 2012

Amnesia Hat 06 is in production and will be printed in February
I've found some leftover covers and interiors of previously printed CGTP books, so I'll be putting together some new copies of Flying Objects, Lemon, Living with Myself Forgetting and The Suspect in the next two months

For spring/summer: more Amnesia Hat, a book of polaroids, a new photobook from David Agasi, and more!

November 13, 2011

Amnesia Hat 04 & 05

The next two issues of Amnesia hat are now available.

Amnesia Hat 04: April-June 2011

Amnesia Hat 05: July-September 2011

August 21, 2011

CGTP on hiatus until September

Cold Green Tea Press is going on a trip; any books ordered from now until the end of the month will be sent in early September. See you next month!

(edit 9/12/2010: Cold Green Tea Press is back, and orders will now be sent normally)

August 19, 2011

Coming Soon: Amnesia Hat 04

Amnesia Hat 04: April-June 2011 is in production and will be available early September 2011. Here are some sample pages from the demo:

July 8, 2011

Mini-Interview with Andrew Nye

Andrew Nye's The Suspect as well as his first book, Flying Objects, are both available from Cold Green Tea Press.

How are your new poems changed since your first book, Flying Objects?

The clearest change has been moving away from the seemingly personal “I” central to lyric poetry and into a recurring fictional “he” more characteristic of narrative poetry. Each poem presents an event centered around a third person protagonist.

How does your location affect your writing?

Contrary to what everyone believes, it rains in Seattle. Everyday. All year. On the other hand, the sun breaks through most days on and off. The gray atmosphere broken by bright, sharp light upon dazzling flora in constant bloom is a bit like The Wizard of Oz when the film shifts from black and white to Technicolor. It must affect my writing somehow.

What book do you think has inspired you the most?

Mr. Cogito by Zbigniew Herbert has had a big influence on the suspect poems. Mr. Cogito was originally published in Polish as Pan Cogito in 1974.

How would you describe your work to someone?

I would describe it as surrealist narrative poetry. There is intention within the poems, however, and they are very accessible. These poems are not an exercise in nonsense (as much as I do love good nonsense).

Any upcoming projects?

I am considering a mystery novel written as a series of narrative poems. I am also constructing a zygote.

The Suspect by Andrew Nye

Cold Green Tea Press is excited to announce the release of The Suspect, Andrew Nye's second chapbook of poems.

The poems in The Suspect inhabit a strange zoo of a world where fairy tales, city life, curious animals, film noir and unexpected encounters make themselves known all at once. In this absurd yet tantalizingly familiar world, the suspect wanders between exultation and travail, encountering setbacks but never retreating.

The Suspect by Andrew Nye

7"x 5.5"
Hand-cut and sewn
Paper: high-quality offset text
Cover: 110lb cardstock
ISBN: 978-0-9824384-4-2
$7 + 1 shipping
(email for shipping if outside the US)

-----------------------------------

The brown bear

The suspect witnessed within her eyes
all visible astronomical phenomena

the moon waxed and waned
the sun galloped its path through the constellations
stars spun around the celestial pole
like a nude dancer dusted with glitter

he predicted the coming rains
calculated his exact location with a sextant
and threw dice into the cosmic abyss

Would you like to have coffee?

The motion of her lips instigated a riot
in the frontal lobe of his cerebral cortex

Yes…

His ears quivered with the music of the spheres
and for an instant, he knew the outcome of all things

He wanted to rest his head on her shoulder
feel the shores of her warm skin on his cheek

As she stood to leave, handing him her card

he glimpsed between the peaks of her cuspids
a marvelous brown bear swimming in the sea

© 2011 Andrew Nye

May 27, 2011

Amnesia Hat 03 now available

Running late but looking good, Amnesia Hat 03: January-March 2011 is available in (very) limited early editions.

Amnesia Hat 03: January-March 2011
7" x 5.25"
Hand-bound and sewn, color
Photographs by Kenneth Traynor
$10+1 shipping
(email for shipping if outside the US)

May 23, 2011

Coming in June 2011

Cold Green Tea Press has three books coming out in the beginning of June: The Suspect by Andrew Nye, Amnesia Hat 03 and a book of polaroids called Books & Cameras. Check back in the next few weeks for more details.

Amnesia Hat 03: January-March 2011

May 13, 2011