By the time Ralph Gibson paid $4,000 to publish his first photography book, “The Somnambulist,” in 1970, he owed nine months’ rent at the Chelsea Hotel and two of his three Leicas were in pawn. He was 30, and he’d spent the three previous years — in his words — “constantly very, very broke,” reading Jorge Luis Borges, watching French New Wave films and meticulously crafting his surrealist collection of photographs at a time when art photography was not a viable commercial endeavor.

Nonetheless, it was the beginning of a long and successful career.

“It was very strange,” Mr. Gibson said. “I went from an impoverished nobody to all of a sudden being on my feet. I was getting a lot of press, doing lectures and workshops, and selling the occasional print.”