latest additions to your library

A few interesting new additions for me:

Nobuyoshi Araki - Sentimental Journey

I'm not the hugest Araki fan (just got my first book which I indeed like) but this one looked interesting. A bit unforgivable, but I was in Japan last Fall when the Sentimental Journey was on exhibit in Ebisu Garden Place. We walked by every day at least twice to and from the train. Always planned to go but never made it work. Doh.
 
Found these two in a used book store and couldn't leave them there.

Rene Burri - Photographs (Phaidon, 2004)
Andre Kertesz - Jeu de Palme exhibition catalog (2010)
 
...Photography can be about the everyday experience, and the ordinary things that people pass by without noticing....

That's part of the point of my latest addition, "Art Can Help" by Robert Adams. It contains mostly photographs that I may not otherwise have stopped to look at, but they are enlivened by his observations. Adams is one of the more positive voices in the art world today and an a unabashed proponent of beauty. I like that.

"More than anything else, beauty is what distinguishes art. Beauty is never less than a mystery, but it has within it a promise."​

40718100704_19870dc715_b.jpg


John
 
"Desert"--Jungjin Lee.
"A Thousand Crossings"--Sally Mann.
"Gregory Crewdson" and "Anthony Hernandez" retrospectives.
"Dog's Best Friend" Lee Friedlander.
 
I really don't know what to think about this book. Kenna is best known for his amazing medium-format landscape photography ... now he published a book of snapshots taken exclusively with Holga cameras? Is he selling out?

Selling out by using technology developed in the early 80's? Describing the images in his book as snapshots is astonishing, these photographs go back almost fifteen years, so this isn't something new. Looking at his images, I definitely recognize them as Kenna photographs. They are still in his typical 120 square format and I would never describe them as snapshots. The limitations of the Holga come through, but in no way hurt the image. The book is great.
 
Joseph Rodriguez - Juvenile: Youth Offenders in Silicon Valley

41J6WBRDB4L.jpg


This was an off-the-cuff purchase based on the fact that it sounded interesting and was fairly cheap. It surpassed my expectations. Some great, powerful images and accompanying text focusing on California's juvenile court system. Makes me want to track down some more of Rodriguez's books.


James Ravilious - The Recent Past

61M7%2BGIQ3bL.jpg


An excellent publication of Ravilious' stark and humanistic rural photographs.
 
Tales of Tono

Tales of Tono

Daido Moriyama 'Tales of Tono'. This small book was released at the time of the Klein/Moriyama exhibition back in 2012. It's packed full of photos, taken about thirty years previously, of Moriyama's adopted home town on Tono but unfortunately they are badly reproduced. A better book, which also contains Moriyama's writings, is Memories of a Dog but this is now out of print and seems to have become rather expensive.

Anyway, it's interesting to read about his travels and as far as equipment goes, for this excusion he took one 35mm camera and two lenses, a 28mm and an unspecified macro lens. His major preoccupation on a trip (apart from photographing) is to locate the nearest coffee house.

In view of the poor reproduction and current price (£20) I'm not sure that I can recommend 'Tales of Tono' except to Moriyama enthusiasts like myself.
 
Daido Moriyama 'Tales of Tono'. This small book was released at the time of the Klein/Moriyama exhibition back in 2012. It's packed full of photos, taken about thirty years previously, of Moriyama's adopted home town on Tono but unfortunately they are badly reproduced. A better book, which also contains Moriyama's writings, is Memories of a Dog but this is now out of print and seems to have become rather expensive.

Anyway, it's interesting to read about his travels and as far as equipment goes, for this excusion he took one 35mm camera and two lenses, a 28mm and an unspecified macro lens. His major preoccupation on a trip (apart from photographing) is to locate the nearest coffee house.

In view of the poor reproduction and current price (£20) I'm not sure that I can recommend 'Tales of Tono' except to Moriyama enthusiasts like myself.
I bought TALES OF TONO a few years back. The images are wonderful, but as you say the reproduction is poor. It's an excellent book in all other ways, and I'd list it as one of the most inspirational photobooks I've encountered over the past ten years or so, but with the caveat that the photographs are poorly reproduced.

I'd also recommend DAIDO MORIYAMA: RECORD, which collates the thirty issues of RECORD and is excellent in all respects.

51uof2Pf3aL.jpg
 
America's Cool Modernism

America's Cool Modernism

America's Cool Modernism, O'Keeffe to Hopper
This is the catalogue to an exhibition currently showing at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Apart from a wonderful section of paintings there are also photographs by Steiglitz, Cunningham, Strand and others. I think this exhibition is superb and the catalogue is beautifully produced with many essays, as well as biographies of all of the artists.
 
Back
Top Bottom