Website: https://palmpress.studio/
Email: info@palmpress.studio
Phone: 617-307-6527
Address:
19 High St, Medford MA 02155
Open Wednesday-Friday 10-6 and Saturday 11-4.

On my way to the library book sale last weekend, I passed Palm Press Inc. Books happen to be my siren song and seeing they had books on their shelves, I walked in. At first glance you realize this isn’t a regular bookstore. Looking through the shelves, the books were about the art of photography. Everything from instruction books to biographies of prominent photographers or more accurately books about visual arts. It is much more than that. I should also make a note, that I should return to the store and take better photographs, a cell phone camera can be an affront to this place. However, the manager of this store and studio, Ross was super nice and indulged me and my questions.

I’ll refer to this place as a proper studio for a couple of reasons, more below. The bookshelf above features books by up and coming visual artists. Among those artists is Amani Willett who will be at Palm Press today at 1pm for his book signing pop-up event! The book shelf at the back contain books about visual art, visual artists, the craft of photography and anything else dealing with the visual medium.

The shelves above hold used books, and if you’re looking for anything in particular, you should find it here. I ended up buying a copy of “Stieglitz, O’Keeffe & American Modernism”. We’ve all seen O’Keeffe’s “flower” art, but there is so much more to her body of work. I didn’t realize that her partner was Alfred Stieglitz, but that is a discussion for another time. I saw books ranging from Pumping Iron: The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding to instructional books about the use of lighting in photography.

While the picture above does not do the studio any justice, it serves to highlight another service that Palm Press features: a full-service studio that includes a professional darkroom for developing photos, and high-quality framing services—not the cheap kind you find at copy shops. They also assemble high-quality portfolios for artists wishing to display their work.

The last point I will make is that this place, much like Deep Cuts last week and Real Gusto a couple of weeks back, is a community hub. These businesses directly reflect the character of their owners. The owner of Deep Cuts built his place around the things he enjoyed. The same could be said for the owner of Palm Press, Gus Kayafas. The picture above shows various books about some aspects of visual art, which are from the reference section of his personal collection. Yes, you can look at them, but they cannot leave the store. I will definitely return to do a more thorough review of this studio, and with a real camera, too! In the meantime, if you have not had a chance to stop in, and you are interested in the visual arts or have a work of art you need framed, I encourage you to choose Palm Press Inc.

As mentioned today at 1pm – Amani Willett

For more about Amani, his website is here – https://www.amaniwillett.com/