20 Must have books on/of photography...

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photorat

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This is a call for RFF users to post their own personal list of "20 must-have photography books". Books may span all possible genres: photo books (portraits, landscapes, photojournalism, etc.), practical guides, studies in history/philosophy/aesthetics of photography, etc. The idea is to provide a nucleus for others looking to start or extend their own collections. (I'll post my own list in a seperate post.)

For the sake of uniformity, a couple of guidelines for posting:

a. Post a maximum of 20 books per list. If you want to split up the list into sub-lists per category (e.g. best practical guides, best portrait collections, best retrospectives, etc.) then limit each sub-list to 10 entries.

b. Format should be as follows:
Author surname, Author first name. Title. Location: Publisher, Year.
Publishing details are not essential but helpful for finding out-of-print items. e.g.:
1. Cartier-Bresson, Henri. Images à la sauvette. Paris: Verve, 1952.

c. By all means add comments in brackets after each entry, justifying its inclusion in the list, describing its particular importance to you personally... whatever.
 
Salgado, Sebastiao. "Africa". Taschen 2007

(Buy it, read it, compare own photography, sell cameras, take up golf. ;)
Everyone has their favorites and opinions...as per other thread ongoing...but mine would be that HCB and Capa et al pale in comparison to this work.)
 
Here, in no particular order, are ten books that come to my mind (great idea for a thread by the way):

Nachtwey, James. Inferno.

Webb, Alex. Crossings.

Salgado, Sebastiao. Workers.

Lindbergh, Peter. Images of Women.

Boot, Chris (ed.). Magnum Stories.

Mora, Gilles, and John T Hill (eds.). W. Eugene Smith: The Camera as Conscience.

Borcoman, James (ed.). Magicians of Light: Photographs from the Collection of the National Gallery of Canada.

Penn, Irving. Worlds in a Small Room.

Eisenstaedt, Alfred, and Arthur Goldsmith. The Eye of Eisenstaedt.

Cameron, Julia Margaret and Julian Cox (commentary). In Focus: Julia Margaret Cameron: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum.
 
Here's some theory:

- Benjamin, Walter, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction ("Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit"). The 1936 German original was published as a little book. I'm not sure if this was ever published in book form in English; an on-line version of the text is available here.

- Bourdieu, Pierre, Photography: A Middle-Brow Art, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1990 ("Un Art moyen")

- Sontag, Susan, On Photography, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux 1977

And if you want photography in its wider context, the most brilliant theoretical introduction of all would probably be

- McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man; the original was I think published in 1964; the best edition is probably Corde Madera, CA: Gingko Press 2003.

Philipp
 
My list grows as time goes by. If I'm limited to 20, here's 20 of many (no particular order, just going by memory):

The Americans by Robert Frank

Walker Evans At Work

Deus ex Machina by Ralph Gibson

Personal Exposures by Elliott Erwitt

Andre' Kertesz: His Life and Work

Doisneau Paris

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, An American Visionary (published by the Akron Art Museum)

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographer

Emmet Gowin: Photographs

Friedlander by Peter Galassi

Paul Strand: Sixty Years of Photographs

The Daybooks of Edward Weston

Immediate Family by Sally Mann

William Eggleston's Guide

Georgia O'Keefe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz

Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague

Winogrand: Figments of the Real World by John Szarkowski

Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph

Prague, 1968 by Josef Koudelka

Stray Dog by Daido Moriyama


(I had to delete a couple because I went over the limit.)
 
OK, Fred, here's one for you:

Leni van Dinther, Drukwerk, Nijmegen: Impuls Boek 1998.

Probably not one of the 10 greatest photo books of all time, but a nice counterweight.

Philipp
 
Probably one of the most inspirational books I've read in a long time, and very appropriate to this forum is :
The Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing
by Philippe Gross

Made me really think about how and why I take pictures.
 
Dogman said:
My list grows as time goes by. If I'm limited to 20, here's 20 of many (no particular order, just going by memory):

The Americans by Robert Frank

Walker Evans At Work

Deus ex Machina by Ralph Gibson

Personal Exposures by Elliott Erwitt

Andre' Kertesz: His Life and Work

Doisneau Paris

Ralph Eugene Meatyard, An American Visionary (published by the Akron Art Museum)

Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographer

Emmet Gowin: Photographs

Friedlander by Peter Galassi

Paul Strand: Sixty Years of Photographs

The Daybooks of Edward Weston

Immediate Family by Sally Mann

William Eggleston's Guide

Georgia O'Keefe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz

Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague

Winogrand: Figments of the Real World by John Szarkowski

Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph

Prague, 1968 by Josef Koudelka

Stray Dog by Daido Moriyama


(I had to delete a couple because I went over the limit.)
Click to expand...

This /\ is a good list. I would probably pull two or three off this and maybe add an Avedon, Araki, Bill Owens' Suburbia, M.E. Mark's Exposure and change the Evans' to Hungry Eye, but this is a list I can get behind. I love Stray Dog.



.
Nikonwebmaster said:
OK my list right off my shelf (what I actually spent my money on)

1) Cindy Sherman's "Movie Stills"
Click to expand...

One of the silliest books I've ever seen. Definitely NOT on my list.


.
 
My current favorite:

Sultan, Larry. Pictures from Home. New York. Harry N Abrams (October
1992)

/\ Difficult to find, but worth the look (not the price of a used copy though!)

I also second The Tao of Photography
 
The family of man, and even more so, the family of children. Without these, I wouldn't be taking pictures.
 
I thought i would add just one name .... a photographer getting very little attention on this forum ........ strange because he is one of the greatest streetphotographers ever ...!

Tom Wood: Photie Man
Steidl Verlag
ISNB 978-3865210838

Have a look....

http://www.steidlville.com/books/52-Photie-Man.html


His book "Bus odyssey" is also very good but hard to find and expensive by now!
 
I would add:

Avedon, Richard In the American West Portraits of the working class, and various drifters, carnys, mental patients, etc., made over a period of a couple of years.
 
here are a few of mine minus a fair few suggestions made by several of you already

Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape by Galen Rowell

Steam, Steel and Stars: America's Last Steam Railroad by O.Winston Link

Harm's Way by Joel Peter Witkin
 
Anybody anywhere near London should head for the Photographers' Gallery (near Leicester Square tube).

When I lived in London I had a membership which meant tickets to previews and chats with great photographers.

Wine, olives, talk to the photographer whose exhibition is featured this month...
 
My personal must haves - a subjective list:
1)
Andre Kertesz
„Momente eines Lebens“
2)
Ernst Haas
„The Creation“
3)
Evans/Agee
„Let us now praise famous men“
4)
Diane Arbus
„The aperture monograph“
5)
Peter Keetmann
„Eine Woche im Volkswagenwerk“
6)
Robert Frank
„The Americans“
7)
Phaidon 55
„Joel Meyerowitz“
8)
David Douglas Duncan
„Picasso paints a portrait“
9)
Josef Sudek
„Poet of Prague“
10)
John Loengard
„Celebrating the negative“
11)
Inge Morath/Arthur Miller
„Country Life“
12)
Ralph Gibson
„Deus ex machina“
13)
Richard Avedon
„In the American West“
14)
Walker Evans
„America“
15)
Lee Friedlander
„Maria“
16)
Jerome Liebling
„The people, yes!“
17)
Robert Mapplethorpe
„Flowers“
18)
Friedrich Seidenstücker
„Der faszinierende Augenblick“
19)
Andreas Feininger
„Stone and man“
20)
Gabriele und Helmut Nothhelfer
„Lange Augenblicke“
 
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