Ari Marcopoulos "Directory" Book

Photographer Ari Marcopoulos has amassed an enviable catalog of photos and relationships over his 30-year career. His upcoming book titled Directory is a testament to the photographer and filmmaker’s documentation exploits with 1,200 pages representing a good chunk of his favorite photos. Interview Magazine conducted a short interview with Marcopoulos including how he went about the book and some background information. Directory will be published by Rizzoli and Nieves with a release on March 5. Some of the questions and answers from the interview can be seen below.

KEN MILLER: How do you edit a 1200-page book?

ARI MARCOPOULOS: You don’t edit. We just took a stack [of photos] and then laid them on top of each other.

Your early work was black and white, then you switched to color. Why switch back to black and white?

I didn’t really switch back. I shoot both color and black and white still—predominantly color. The [images in the book] are all copies, so most of the originals are color photos.

How did you arrive at the photocopied printing style you’ve been using for the last few years?

I have been making photocopies for years, first just as a tool to figure out book layouts, but always loving the look. Then it was a question of being tired of endless tinkering to get a “perfect” color print. With photocopies, it’s all pretty straightforward.

Why was it important to keep the date stamps in the digital photos—especially since they’re not chronological or a daily diary?

Dates can be important. It’s a nice way to remember when I took [the photo] without having to rack my brain or look in the archives. It also makes every photo important, because there is the date. I can take a picture of nothing, but at least we know when I took it.