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Benjamin Marks

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Based on a suggestion from Mike Johnston over at The Online Photographer, I picked up a copy of a book of Saul Leiter pictures (Thames & Hudson). Wow. I was not familiar with Leiter's work and I am just blown away. Street/candid photography from 1940-1960's NYC. Some early color stuff. Hints of Helen Levitt, Bruce Davidson, Ralph Meatyard, Robert Frank. What a treat. I have no connection to Leiter or TOP [edit: other than as a satisfied consumer of what they are dishing up].

In fiction I have recently discovered Octavia Butler, American scifi/alternative fiction writer. Damn she was good.

What's RFF reading these days?

Ben Marks
 
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I started reading "Armed with Cameras" by Peter Maslowski a couple of days ago. It is a collection of stories, anecdotes and experiences from soldiers serving in the different Signal Photo Companies during WW2.
 
Newspaper. I always wondered how it compares to RSS-Feeds, and yup, it does suck.

//As for books, The Dharma Bums and Howl next.

martin
 
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Benjamin Marks said:
Based on a suggestion from Mike Johnston over at The Online Photographer, I picked up a copy of a book of Saul Leiter pictures (Thames & Hudson). Wow. I was not familiar with Leiter's work and I am just blown away. Street/candid photography from 1940-1960's NYC. Some early color stuff. Hints of Helen Levitt, Bruce Davidson, Ralph Meatyard, Robert Frank. What a treat. I have no connection to Leiter or TOP.

In fiction I have recently discovered Octavia Butler, American scifi/alternative fiction writer. Damn she was good.

What's RFF reading these days?

Ben Marks
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I just re-read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Haven't read any photography books lately though, as I'm also working on some CompTIA certifications.
 
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Edge of Darkness - Barry Thornton
The Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age - Richard Rudgley
A Case of Exploding Mangoes - Mohammed Hanif
 
Al Patterson said:
I just re-read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Haven't read and photography books lately though, as I'm also working on some CompTIA certifications.
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Hmm Heinlein. A couple of weeks ago I re-read Time Enough for Love. Sometimes it is interesting to re-read stuff you read years ago to see what appealed about it to one's former self. Kind of like visiting your younger self to check in. That and old photographs are the closest I'll get to time travel. Jack Finney, where are you when we need you?

Ben Marks
 
Benjamin Marks said:
Hmm Heinlein. A couple of weeks ago I re-read Time Enough for Love. Sometimes it is interesting to re-read stuff you read years ago to see what appealed about it to one's former self. Kind of like visiting your younger self to check in. That and old photographs are the closest I'll get to time travel. Jack Finney, where are you when we need you?

Ben Marks
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Last year I re-read "Friday" and "The Cat Who Walked Through Walls".

As an IT geek type, I read all of Heinlein, Clarke and Asimov when I was growing up. I did re-read some of Clarke's classics after he died last year, and just sort of flowed in to the RAH stuff.

Next, I'll probably get to the Asimov Robot and Foundation series, just to see if they held up as well as Clarke and Heinlein.
 
My current roommate has a bookcase full of sci-fi paperbacks; I'm reading some of his favorites that I haven't read before. Just finished Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, and now I'm reading Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
 
At the moment I'm reading 'The Fatal Shore' by Robert Hughes about the transport of convicts from Georgian Britain to Australia. It's very appropriate really since my wife and I have just passed our citizenship test after revising a more basic form of the books' contents.
 
Edward Hopper & Company.
Hopper's Influence on Photography Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, Stephen Shore. Introduction by Jeffrey Fraenkel.

This to me is one of those must read books where we see the merging of the Painter's and Photographer's aesthetic.

"What we see in Hopper's paintings when we look at them through the lens of photography, and how, in turn, the language of photography was influenced by Hopper's work, are the twin subjects of Edward Hopper & Company. Thoughtfully curated and edited by the respected San Francisco gallerist Jeffrey Fraenkel, seven paintings and three drawings by Hopper are here thematically interlaced with carefully selected photographs by eight of the masters of twentieth-century photography: Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander and Stephen Shore."
 
I started in on Chuck Palahniuk's latest, 'Pygmy' late last week. So far, so good, but I think it might be more effective read aloud. Also reading Amity Shlaes 'The Forgotten Man'- a re-evaluation of the Great Depression.
 
neal stephenson is my favorite author! the diamond age is a good one, but if you like him at all be sure to power through the baroque cycle. then read cryptonomicon *after* the baroque cycle as it's a continuation.


steverett said:
My current roommate has a bookcase full of sci-fi paperbacks; I'm reading some of his favorites that I haven't read before. Just finished Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama, and now I'm reading Stephenson's The Diamond Age.
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Re-reading Nabokov's "Lolita" for the fourth time and as with every time around I'm discovering more. His language is exquisite.

Oh, and for those who are into Neal Stephenson, do not pass up "Cryptonomicon." Yeah, it's a brick of a book, and it can be a little hard to get into at first, but once I got about 100 pages in I read the other 850 in about a week. I actually called out of work one day so I could finish the book and then go to sleep because I stayed up all night reading it. He's great.
 
Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers On Their Art - Edited by Brooks Johnson.

The Photograph as Contemporary Art - by Charlotte Cotton

Two recent books above have been about photographers and how they do what they do...

The Negative - by Ansel Adams. Just couldn't get through it or really even get it going. Back to the library this thin little book went perhaps I'll try again later...

Just picked up On Photography - by Susan Sontag at a used book store. Been waiting for a good opportunity to get this book.
 
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