Photo books- what are the must haves?

K

Kyle

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I'm looking for more photgraphy books to add to my collection. Currently, its severely lacking. What are some of the better, in print, books to have? When I look at Amazon.com and search for HCB or Diane Arbus (for example) I get a lot of choices, without being able to look at them in person I don't know which ones are worth buying and which I should pass on. I'm looking for more than just HCB or Arbus, obviously, I just used them as an example. I'm interested in many of the photographers that I believe are popular here as well: Salgado, Frank (I just picked up the Americans yesterday!), Kertesz, etc. I'm not really interested in paying ridiculous prices for collector's items and OOP copies. Any help is appreciated! 🙂
 
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check your libraries

check your libraries

and my blog. Your local libaries should keep you busy for weeks. I've only found a few worth buying out of hundreds, and they're not necessarily rf based.

Kyle said:
I'm looking for more photgraphy books to add to my collection. Currently, its severely lacking. What are some of the better, in print, books to have? When I look at Amazon.com and search for HCB or Diane Arbus (for example) I get a lot of choices, without being able to look at them in person I don't know which ones are worth buying and which I should pass on. I'm looking for more than just HCB or Arbus, obviously, I just used them as an example. I'm interested in many of the photographers that I believe are popular here as well: Salgado, Frank (I just picked up the Americans yesterday!), Kertesz, etc. I'm not really interested in paying ridiculous prices for collector's items and OOP copies. Any help is appreciated! 🙂
Click to expand...
 
I've been building my collection up and it's getting quite nice.

I've found that the Arbus Aperture(?) monograph (the one with the twins on front) is one of her best.

I'll toss out a couple more and let some others add their picks.

Winogrand's "Figments From the Real World"

Friedlander's "Friedlander"
 
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Art & Fear-The Perils and rewards of artmaking, by Ted Orland & David Bayles. Nothing else comes close!

Russ
 

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Russ said:
Art & Fear-The Perils and rewards of artmaking, by Ted Orland & David Bayles. Nothing else comes close!

Russ
Click to expand...


Russ: Many thanks. I just ordered it based on your recommendation. (Also the reviews at Amazon were pretty compelling)
 
interesting Ray

interesting Ray

I found the Arbus Aperture one pretty uninteresting, made me not even want to see the nicole kidman movie. I can see the novel of the subjects in the old days where magazines and books (and the circus) were the sole source of some of those subject types, but with youtube and the net, it seems we may have become sensitized to some of the novel subjects in that book, IMHO, of course.


RayPA said:
I've been building my collection up and it's getting quite nice.

I've found that the Arbus Aperture(?) monograph (the one with the twins on front) is one of her best.

I'll toss out a couple more and let some others add their picks.

Winogrand's "Figments From the Real World"

Friedlander's "Friedlander"
Click to expand...
 
i second "Magnum Stories". I got it last christmas as a gift and i read through it within the first week. Basicially, Magnum Photo Agency asked each photographer to write about what motivates them or how they started to take photos/ got interested in photography in then leads to a few pages of a photo story that they shot. All the greats magnum guys are in it and its really interesting. as a photojournalism student i find it to be my most prized book. you can spend hours reading it/looking at pictures. And its something that never gets old. I seriously think that this is the book for you.
 
get thee to the library, new and second hand book stores!!! the more you see for yourself, the better you will know who strikes a photographic chord for you.

i'm not at home right now & can't wander to my bookshelves...so, i'll stretch my memory -from newest backwards here- the works of keith carter, nana sousa diaz, debbie sharpe, nan goldin, clyde butcher, gordon parks, patrick demarchelier, annie leibowitz, joel meyerwitz, richard avedon, helmut newton, alice springs, elliot erwit, ralph gibson, pete turner manuel alvarez bravo, harry callahan, ruth bernhard, robert doisneau, ernst haas, louis dahl-wolf, tina modotti, alfred steiglitz, man ray, edward weston, ansel adams, julia cameron....eek, who did i miss?

my "must haves" or anyone elses are one thing...your "must haves" will ultimately be by photographers you are drawn to. besides book stores, there is the internet. one of many, many sites you may want to visit is:
www.photographers a-z.com (i think that's it).

_____________________________________

smile, breathe, relax and enjoy
_____________________________________

hasta la vista, voyez-vous plus tard, daskorava,fino al prossimo tempo, auf wiedersehen, vedali piu sucessivamente, la revedere, shalom, zaijian, and ... later y’all 😛 😀 😛

kenneth lockerman
NEVER FORGET BESLAN
www.neverforgetbeslan.com
www.neverforgetbeslan.org (under construction)
kenneth@neverforgetbeslan.com

"...patience and shuffle the cards" miguel cervantes
"nothing can be learned" herman hesse
"everybody knows everything" jack kerouac
"some memories are realities and better than anything" willa cather
" doo-wacka doo, wacka doo" roger miller
"we have met the enemy and they is us !" walt kelly (pogo)



bon chance!! enjoy the journey to learning about photographers present and past.
 
Not too many good second hand book stores here, I'm afraid. Plenty of new stores and plenty of libraries, including a good one at my university, I just never get to them (although I should). A lot of the books that seem interesting at my local new book stores are sealed in plastic wrapping, so I can't thumb through them to see if they're any good. Its hard to plunk down $70 for a book if I don't know whats inside. Combine sealed copies with a not so great selection to begin with, and I have to rely on reviews and other people's opinions if I want to buy something.
 
ampguy said:
I found the Arbus Aperture one pretty uninteresting, made me not even want to see the nicole kidman movie. I can see the novel of the subjects in the old days where magazines and books (and the circus) were the sole source of some of those subject types, but with youtube and the net, it seems we may have become sensitized to some of the novel subjects in that book, IMHO, of course.
Click to expand...

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! 🙂 🙂 🙂


😉
 
My favorite book is Helen Levitt's Crossroads which I think has gotten expensive now. I'd look into something else by her. The HCB Man/Image/World book is worth having, as is the Winogrand Figments (but it's gotten expensive now too). I think the Ansel Adams 100 book is a must have. I also really like Edward Weston's Legacy. The kinds of books I enjoy don't necessarily have much to do with the kinds of photographs I like to make.

Based on the stuff you mentioned, you might like Bikeriders by Danny Lyon. You may also want to check out East 100th St by Bruce Davidson (Subway is now expensive).

Books on my to buy or in transit list include: Friedlander self-titled, Koudelka-Chaos, Erwitt-Personal best, Nachtwey-Inferno, Meyerowitz-Aftermath, Kenna-Retrospective.

Something that I think is an amazing deal right now is the signed Recollections from John Sexton (www.johnsexton.com). Some of the images were in a recent Lenswork & it looks amazing.

Since these books get very expensive, I would just get a few favorites that you know you want & have seen at a library. For the others, the Aperture Masters of Photography books are readily available used for under $10. I usually get those books for someone who I want to see sometimes, but don't want to spend the money on a large book. In addition to the the Masters of Photography books, I would subscribe to Lenswork.

To get started, you could also just get the 4 Masters titles for HCB, Weegee, Bravo, & Atget. You can easily get them used for under $30 total.
 
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Just pulled a couple off of the shelf, Don McCullins Beirut a City in Crisis,(will it ever end) Sebastiao Salgado`s Workers, W.Eugene Smith Master of the Photographic Essay. They are all probably out of print by now but well worth tracking down.
 
If you like some excellent written legends 🙂 combined with well and less well known photographs and their stories, get the "slightly out of focus" by robert capa. It's not strictly a photography book and it does not have the best print quality for the photos, but that's also not the point of the book.
 
If you are going to collect photography books you need to check out Photo-Eye. IMHO, it's the best niche bookstore out there. Be sure to go through their discount selection. I can't tell you how many books (all new) I've picked up for next to nothing. Plus, you can often get signed copies of new books at the same price you can get it on Amazon or at your local bookstore.

Highly recommended and I have had nothing but positive experiences. Plus, for most books, their review feature is much more extensive the Amazon.

http://www.photoeye.com/
 
Dale Cook said:
If you are going to collect photography books you need to check out Photo-Eye. IMHO, it's the best niche bookstore out there. Be sure to go through their discount selection. I can't tell you how many books (all new) I've picked up for next to nothing. Plus, you can often get signed copies of new books at the same price you can get it on Amazon or at your local bookstore.

Highly recommended and I have had nothing but positive experiences. Plus, for most books, their review feature is much more extensive the Amazon.

http://www.photoeye.com/
Click to expand...


oooohhhhh .... good link

thank you very much 😀
 
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