Photo credit: Curtis James, 2023

Siren Song is a photographic project that embodies my personal view of California’s Salton Sea – a seemingly marginalized and neglected American "Western Frontier" - and the vestiges of its inhabitants. As I spent time there and became more intimate with the place, I tried to pull back some of the surface layers to uncover the longing, sadness, and hope that I perceived.

In 2023, Emily Macaulay (Stanley James Press) and I worked to create something tangible from this project, a large book that can envelop the reader and help to “place” them there. The paper dimensions and thick stock encourages the reading experience to become a ‘bodily’ one. The text accompanying the photos is letterpress printed on the very thin Offenbach Bible paper; its materiality is extremely light and easily slips from the fingers. This paper echoes the fragility of the landscape and reflects the ethereal –  the ghosts of the Salton Sea.

Edition of 75

A saddle stitched book measuring 240x360mm (portrait)  / 9.5"x14.25" (portrait)

Screen printed foldout cover with attached photo to front cover. Printed on Colorplan Slate 350gsm

8 text pages printed on Colorplan Vellum 175gsm

19 full bleed photo pages, digitally printed on Naturalis Matt Absolute White 160gsm

6 letterpress printed poems, printed on Offenbach Bible paper

Photography and poems by Tamar Granovsky

Epigraph: Nafiza Azad, The Candle and the Flame

Design by Tamar Granovsky and Emily Macaulay of Stanley James Press

Autumn 2023. Hand bound by Stanley James Press