What is your favorite book of photographs?

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Benjamin Marks

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For a long time, I kept returning to Richard Avedon's In the American West; then it was a collection of Bruce Davidson's (Outside/Inside). Recently one of the small Aperture collections of Bernice Abbot caught my eye. How about RFF? What is your current favorite book of photographs; what are you looking at and why?

Ben Marks
 
Yeah, I have Saul Leiter (the Photofile edition) sitting right next to a comfy chair in the living room. Amazing little book and great pix. He really knew how to work a color photograph -- something that I am still struggling with.
 
I come back time and time again to Andre Kertesz's A Lifetime of Perception. I think what endures about it for me is the humor and compassion for humanity in the images and how the selection chronicles a life lived photographically.
 
For those who responded, do you tend to buy books that reinforce the kind of photography you currently do, or books that lead you in a new direction?
 
Bill Owen's "Suburbia". I found it at the Livermore library in 1976 shortly after I moved there at 18 years old. It moved me to take photography at Chabot College and it made me realize that depicting life and lives around me can be much more than snapshots.
 
Benjamin Marks said:
For those who responded, do you tend to buy books that reinforce the kind of photography you currently do, or books that lead you in a new direction?
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My favorite book at the moment is Fred Herzog: Photographs ... though when Chromes by William Eggleston arrives, that may be my favorite.

I buy books of photography based on if I like them or not. It doesn't need to look like what I'm doing. I do mostly color, but still buy B&W books.
 
No way I could pick a favorite, but the book I pick up most often when I'm idle and want to transport myself without leaving the recliner is Depardon's Voyages.

EDIT: It's not the best printed book, the format is a bit awkward (small and thick), but it makes me want to pack up two cameras, a few lenses and lots of film and go wander the world. Being a library- and archive-bound academic, that's about as close to nirvana as I can imagine.
 
There are so many favorites, it's crazy to single out just one. But I will play and pick something I think most people won't already know.
Anthony Hernandez, Waiting, Sitting, Fishing, and Some Automobiles.
I guess you could describe it as a portrait of Los Angeles circa late 1970s-early 80s.
I hesitate to use the word portrait though, because one important thing these pictures do is challenge and dispel the notion that portrait, street photography, landscape, etc. are actually different types of photography.

Gary
 
Benjamin Marks said:
For those who responded, do you tend to buy books that reinforce the kind of photography you currently do, or books that lead you in a new direction?
Click to expand...

Both, but primarily I simply buy books of work that I like, whether or not it relates to what I do. I also buy books on other art forms, particularly land or environmental art.
 
Benjamin Marks said:
For those who responded, do you tend to buy books that reinforce the kind of photography you currently do, or books that lead you in a new direction?
Click to expand...

Now that's an interesting question. I had never thought of it in those terms, thinking more simply that I buy those books that I like. Well, on my shelf there are HCB, Salgado, Moriyama... I definitely buy books that reinforce the kind of photography I currently do, aware that this may be a pitfall for creativity.
 
The Visual Story by Bruce Block
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Benjamin Marks said:
For those who responded, do you tend to buy books that reinforce the kind of photography you currently do, or books that lead you in a new direction?
Click to expand...

The former. Now that most of the book buying happens online, I normally skip the ones that I don't already have an interest in because you can never know what's inside the pages.
 
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