Photo books- what are the must haves?

[DMG]

get yourself a subscription to National Geographic.....a new "book" of nice photos every month....other than that Magnum Stories probably my favourite photo book or Photography of Andy Warhol.

 

[v3cron]

taste varies severely, so you really need to pick out your own. but anyway....here are some of my favorites:

shinjuku 19xx-20xx by daido moriyama
people: life after dark by roxanne lowit
terryworld by terry richardson
anything by juergen teller
helmut newton's work
self, life, death by nobuyoshi araki

 

[pesphoto]

Must Haves? Your collection isnt complete with out:
Walker Evans: Hungry Eye
Andre Kertesz: His Life and work
Atget: Unknown Paris

 

[dreilly]

Salgado: Migrations or Workers

Salgado's work really brings home what's happening on planet earth in this uncertain but tranformational age. You won't forget it.

 

[RayPA]

oooohhhhh .... good link

thank you very much 😀

Get on their mailing list. It's the one piece of "junk mail" I actually look forward to receiving. 🙂

.

 

[RayPA]

Must Haves? Your collection isnt complete with out:
Walker Evans: Hungry Eye
Andre Kertesz: His Life and work
Atget: Unknown Paris

Hungry Eye is good. Also, check out Walker Evans: Lyric Documentary


.

 

[kbg32]

Kyle,

The books below are worthwhile additions to any library. These books get overlooked, and outside the usual suspects that get mentioned here all the time, awakened me to the wider possibilities of photography when I was young. They do not contain images that readily jump off the page at you. Instead they contain images that are quiet, personal, and authentic experiences of the world. Images that are sequenced to be read and looked at again and again.

A Day Off - Tony Ray-Jones
Notations In Passing - Nathan Lyons
Riding First Class On The Titanic (sequal to Notations) - Nathan Lyons
Travelogue - Charles Harbutt

Off course, this all depends on where your tastes lie.

 

[nightfly]

Joseph Koudelka- Chaos

Put it on your X-Mas list. I got my copy for X-Mas a few years and other than being a size that doesn't fit anywhere it is an awesome book.

Other than that depends on your taste. Personally, although once in awhile I pick up a National Geographic, I wouldn't get a subscription. Some folks like Arbus, some don't.

You really need to look at the books to choose. A book of crappy reproductions often doesn't do justice to the photographs.

Personally I love Daido Moriyama so anything by him floats my boat. Robert Frank The Americans is great and I think someone mentioned that there is a recent reproductions which isn't too expensive. William Klein New York 1954-1955 (if you can find it). I find museum bookstores are great places to browse if not buy.

If you're in New York ever, the Strand often has photo books cheap. I bought an autographed copy of Ralph Gibson's "Deus Ex Machina" for not too much. A great book by the way if you like his stuff. Didn't even know it was autographed till I got home, I guess he did a signing in the store and there were left overs.

The Decisive Moment by Bresson with the cover designed by Matisse would be nice but they are usually several hundred to thousand dollars. The New York Public Library has a copy that I flipped thorugh when I was really into him.

 

[pesphoto]

Where can one buy Chaos. Dont see it on Amazon

 

[scottgee1]

Hmmm . . . Jon, you and I have different definitions of what constitutes "not at all expensive". That book is ~$US50 at Amazon.

I'll add to the list anything by Eugene Richards, particularly Knife and Gun Club. He gets deep into his subjects.

ScottGee1

'Magnum Stories' is pretty complete about many big name photographers, and not at all expensive.

 

[quattro98]

Chaos at Amazon

 

[IGMeanwell]

One book that should be not only on every photographer's list but also every music fan's list

William Claxton - Jazz Seen

much of it shot with a Leica 🙂

 

[pesphoto]

Thanks. I guess i need a lesson using the search function 🙂

 

[pesphoto]

oh yeah, anything by W. Eugene Smith. Check him out.

 

[ampguy]

arbus

arbus

I don't think I'm "damning her work" but I don't know what else to call her characters in that book if not "novel." She herself referred to her subjects as "freaks" and I find that many of her subjects are normal people, especially say the twins, or the kid with the toy grenade or anderson cooper 360 who were just captured by arbus in out of normal context situations. As I noted in my blog review of that book, I do like one of her photos, the one with no people in it.

I'm glad you like her work, but it's weird stuff 😀

I'm not too impressed with other Arbus offerings. Those seem to want to capitalize on "something." I always found the Aperture book, which I picked up in the late 70's to be pretty straight forward factual Arbus. I stand by that recommendation.

However, I don't understand the "novel" part of your critique. Some people see Arbus' work only for the "novel" subject matter, the fringe people she sometimes photographed. I don't. In fact Some of my favorite Arbus photos are of the..."un...novel" people (sounds ridiculous, doesn't it?).

If you don't like her work, you don't like it. I like it. I learned a long time ago when I was a photo student/darkroom rat running around with a binder full of negatives, a pack of Agfa enlarging paper and a well worn Arbus Aperture book that most people preferred Ansel Adams and not Diane Arbus.

They focused on the "novel" characters back then and they damned her work for it. You focus on the "novel" characters thirty years later and damn her work for it. Seems like Arbus' work is holding up pretty good to me! 🙂 🙂 🙂


😉

 

[rool]

I second that:
Travelogue - Charles Harbutt

 

[40oz]

I don't think I'm "damning her work" but I don't know what else to call her characters in that book if not "novel." She herself referred to her subjects as "freaks" and I find that many of her subjects are normal people, especially say the twins, or the kid with the toy grenade or anderson cooper 360 who were just captured by arbus in out of normal context situations. As I noted in my blog review of that book, I do like one of her photos, the one with no people in it.

I'm glad you like her work, but it's weird stuff 😀

I recently was able to see an exhibition of her work. While I was not incredibly impressed with every photo, it was her work with the "freaks" that struck me as the best. Not to be flippant, but how many shots of a businessman in Manhattan do we need to see? On the other hand, the young "Teenage Couple" out for the night wouldn't attract any notice, but her portrait of them is kind of "meta-commentary" without even trying. Her pictures of the masked sanitarium residents were particularly striking. The masks hid their faces, yet were somehow more expressive, being products of the wearer, the face the wearer wanted to show the world, fashioned to the best of their ability. It's almost as if her pictures weren't about her, the photographer, but about her subjects, and she was merely the person with the camera at the time. Kind of like a traveling Sears Portrait Studio for those least likely to pose.

One thing missing from the show I saw was the fashion work. It might have been there, and I ignored it or didn't see it amongst the overwhelming number of photos.

I wasn't all that impressed immediately after seeing the show. But since seeing her work, I've learned a bit more about her, and have been able to put what I'd seen into context. I'm now glad I took the opportunity to see her work. It is sometimes weird stuff. People are weird. 🙂

 

[RayPA]

No...Joel Peter Witkin is weird stuff! 😀 AND...I like his work, too!


🙂

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

James Nachtwey's Inferno
Eugene Richard's The Fat Baby
Andrey Tarkovsky's Instant Light (if you like his films these polaroids are stunning)
Tom Stoddard's iWitness

 

[Michael I.]

family of man
HCB:The Man, Image, World: A Retrospective