Too Many Products
Too Much Pressure
Janet Delaney
In Too Many Products Too Much Pressure Janet Delaney (born 1952) returns to a body of work she made in 1980. It gives a peek into a week in the life of a beauty salesman, seen through the lense of his daughter.
Janet Delaney is an American photographer. She has always been drawn to the ways work shapes people’s lives, families and communities. Supported by research and interviews, her projects reflect a deep engagement with the passage of time and photography’s role as a historical record.
In 1980, as a young photographer, Janet Delaney embarked for a week on the job with her soon-to-retire father. Delaney created a witty documentation of a day in the life of a salesman. Despite the humor, Delaney came to see her father’s work under a new light. All the tough business dealings, all the missed dinners and the Saturday meetings became a testament to his efforts to give his children the opportunities he never had.
Bill Delaney had been a beauty salesman from 1948 to 1980. Driving from shop to shop in his Plymouth, his truck overloaded with beauty products. Work is a large part of Bill’s identity. Janet captures him haggling, cajoling, flirting and arguing with haridressers and beauticians, trying to sell his products. She also documents Bill’s exchanges with his boss about deadlines and sale quotas: too many products and too much pressure.
Interspersed among the images are conversations Bill has with the women. He hears about what sells and what doesn’t, he gives discounts and makes deals. And all the time, the number of products seems to increase, and with it, the paperwork Bill must do. The text develops and there is talk of bypassing the salesman and buy directly from the supplier. It’s the announcement of the end of an era.
Her father was the subject of Janet Delaney’s first project. It began as a two-projector slideshow with sound. In the slideshow, which now also exists as a video, you hear Bill’s sales philosophy, his easy rapport and playful haggling with shop owners.
With Too Many Products Too Much Pressure Janet Delaney gives a loving portrait of her father. It’s a book about love, about understanding, about a way of earning a living that has all but disappeared. A father working to give his children the opportunities he never had.
Too Many Products Too Much Pressure
Photographer: Janet Delaney
Published by Deadbeat Club in 2025
Hardcover with open spine, full color offset
112 pages, 21 x 26 cm
Essays by Janet and Connie Delaney (the artist’s mother)
Chosen by people immersed in the photobook world as one of their favorite photobooks of 2025