Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques, by Chris Orwig of the Brooks Institute, is earning praise around the web for not having an excess of verbiage—just the information you're trying to find in easily findable form.
______________________
Mike
Introduction: This article concludes our series "Great Photo Books You Can Buy New," begun when a reader requested a list of "the 10 or 25 most important and influential photography books in the last fifty or more years." I've taken a chance and held off on this last part for quite some time, risking the chance that Geoff's choices would go out of print; I was concerned that our posts were inducing buyer's fatigue in people who were trying to keep up with our suggestions. The links are to Amazon U.S., with apologies to our readers in the rest of the world—a general link to Amazon U.K. is here
-
By Geoff Wittig
Mike Johnston's original post on the subject of putting together a working library or collection of photography books was a model of clear thinking, and an excellent guide to anyone starting out. For starters, let your own taste be your guide. This is your collection; you don't have to answer to anyone else. I would absolutely emphasize Mike's advice to "strike while the iron is hot"; while researching this I was astonished to learn just how many books I purchased a few years ago that are now going for $300 or more used, and unavailable new.
I will admit my biases from the start: my tastes lean strongly toward classical landscape photography, and I am pretty ignorant of work from Europe and Asia, so this colors my judgment. I generally organize my thinking around individual photographers rather than movements or "schools," but there's lots of overlap. Finally, I place great emphasis on a book as a work of art in its own right. Photo reproduction quality is always paramount, but such tangibles as paper quality, typography and design can add up to far more than the sum of their parts.
1. Alfred Stieglitz. The titan of modernist American photographic thought, I think he earns a place in any collection. The monumental two-volume Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set
Alfred Stieglitz: Photographs and Writings is worth seeking out if you can find it used; a gorgeously printed monograph with letterpress printed text, it's probably the best concise summary of Stieglitz's photographic work. There are numerous soft-cover and hard-cover volumes on Stieglitz with repro quality varying all over the map; the Phaidon 55 version
2. Edward Weston. Another giant in the field. My favorite would be the Lodima Press's gorgeously reproduced Life Work
3. Ansel Adams. Well, of course. There are a wealth of choices, since Adams never goes out of style. If you only want one, then Ansel Adams: 400 Photographs
4. Walker Evans. Hugely influential, though I find his style a bit chilly and condescending. The MoMA exhibition retrospective is still widely available, with quite good design & typography, and decent reproductions. I tend to lump Evans, fairly or unfairly, with the FSA photographers whose work I like better. Dorothea Lange, Horace Bristol, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn...all of them have had decent monographs published, but they seem to go out of print almost as soon as they appear. Grab 'em when you can. Beverly Brannan's FSA: The American Vision is a good "photo anthology," as is Long Time Coming: A Photographic Portrait of America, 1935-1943 by Michael Lesy.
A spread from Long Time Coming by Michael Lesy
5. Eugene Richards. I wanted to cite W. Eugene Smith's work, but despite his immense influence, very little is in print currently. The best single volume is probably W. Eugene Smith Photographs 1934-1975 by Gilles Mora, but it's out of print, quite expensive, and hard to find. As a consolation, you can still buy Eugene Richards' The Fat Baby, a summary of this brilliant and daring photographer's work. I see Richards as the natural descendent of W. Eugene Smith, with the same burning social intensity and pictorial genius. I've spent a lot of my adult life in emergency rooms, and Richards' The Knife and Gun Club "gets it" like nothing I've ever seen on the subject. Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue and the recently reissued Dorchester Days are equally incisive.
David Plowden, East of Las Vegas, New Mexico, 1971
6. David Plowden. His elegiac black-and-white images of America's heartland railroads, bridges, small towns and farms quietly document a world that is passing out of sight. Simple, elegant, beautiful compositions and immaculate printing mark his prodigious output. Vanishing Point is his monumental and final retrospective, as he recently stopped photographing. Beautiful reproductions, excellent design and typography; simply a wonderful book. It's also available in a signed and numbered limited edition.
7. Elliot Porter. His pioneering work laid the foundation for all subsequent color landscape/nature photography, and the Sierra Club exhibition-format books of his work in the 1960s were the pioneering "coffee table" tomes. The Color of Wildness is still available from Aperture. Some reviews have criticized its color reproduction, and blocked-up shadows are an issue, but most of the plates look pretty good. Porter's gem-like, modestly sized dye transfer prints are difficult to convey on the printed page. Regarding the Land: Robert Glenn Ketchum and the Legacy of Elliot Porter contains better reproductions, and places Porter's work in a broader context. So many of the original Sierra Club books were sold that they can readily be found at used bookstores. They are really very nice; the typography is superb, with immaculate page design and appropriate use of refinements like f-ligatures and small caps. On the other hand, some of them demonstrate the limitations of 1960s color offset printing. Elliot Porter's work really cries out for a comprehensive retrospective using state-of-the-art color reproduction.
8. George Tice. From a pioneering revival of platinum printing to his work printing Edward Steichen's archive to his own decades-long documentation of urban landscapes, George Tice has created an immense and influential body of work. His capacity to draw pictorial beauty from prosaic subject matter is astonishing. The retrospective George Tice: Urban Landscapes is still available new, and it's excellent; cleanly designed, with elegant typography and good reproductions. There are several other books currently available, including Paterson II.
9. Steve McCurry. His haunting photograph of an Afghan refugee girl is probably the most iconic portrait since Alex Korda's Che Guevara. His work is marked by rich color and subtle composition, together with a moving sense of the dignity of his subjects. I don't think anyone has ever put Kodachrome's distinctive color palette to better use. There are quite a few of his books currently in print. I still like South Southeast, the color reproduction in which is superb; but In the Shadow of Mountains, Looking East, or The Path to Buddha are also lovely.
10. Edward Burtynsky. It took me quite a while to "get" Burtynsky's work, but it finally clicked when I watched the video Manufactured Landscapes. The photographer describes an epiphany he experienced in Pennsylvania while looking for conventionally pretty landscape subjects; he looked around and realized everything in sight had been completely reshaped by coal mining. There was no "landscape" but what industry had created. Burtynsky's immaculately composed large format color images draw surprising pictorial beauty from immense Chinese factories, ship-breaking yards, marble quarries, colossal piles of coal and other industrial realities. Quarries is beautifully printed and a fine introduction to his work. China is also very nice. I have not personally seen the book Manufactured Landscapes, but several reviews comment negatively on the reproductions.
11. Galen Rowell. A number of reviewers including the New York Times and some guy named Johnston disparaged Rowell's work for his frequent use of graduated neutral density filters, implying that he used gimmicks to juice up the color of his photos. But through numerous books and magazine articles Rowell articulated a consistent philosophy. He started out as a mountaineer; his goal was simply to record the beautiful mountain light his eyes could see. Anyone who's witnessed gorgeous post-sunset alpenglow but ended up with burned-out sky and blocked up foreground shadows on film can understand the problem. To this end he studied perceptual theory, the physics of light, and the technical limitations of camera and film. The result was a large body of genuinely spectacular photographs of the natural world. Yes, Yosemite doesn't have a brilliant shaft of sunlight striking a granite face at last light every day. But when it happens, it's the kind of moment you remember for a lifetime. Rowell learned how to catch that moment on film, time after time. Galen Rowell: A Retrospective is a fine summary of his work, with many excellent color reproductions. But also consider Mountain Light, first published in 1985. It's been selling ever since, with good reason. The superb typesetting was by MacKenzie-Harris in SanFrancisco, one of the last hot-metal printers. The extensive text delves into Rowell's working methods with a dash of philosophy and history thrown in. Great stuff.
12. Sebastiao Salgado. Simply brilliant black-and-white documentary work from around the developing world; there's nothing quite like it. A number of his books are still available; just pick your favorite and you can't go wrong. An Uncertain Grace from 2000 is a good sampling of his work, though Workers and Sahel are more focused. Don't hesitate if you like his work, though; Amazon lists used copies of Migrations for anything from $241 to over $700.
As a final note, there are lots of very important names left off my modest list, only because their work is not readily available in book form these days. This includes luminaries such as Margaret Bourke-White (there's a good recent retrospective, yet it's already out of print ), August Sander (Taschen's retrospective has very good reproductions, but likewise no longer available new) and Minor White.
_____________________
Geoff
(Note: The above link is a recent new feature, designed to make it easy to shoot a link to your friends you think might be interested. In this case I urge you to use it; although it might not look like it, an awful lot of work went into our big series on photo books, and yet the clock is ticking on its usefulness...every day, more and more of the titles we've researched for you go bye-bye. Any list of book recommendations these days is built on shifting sands.
Would you do us a favor and please post a link on other mailing lists, forums, and sites you frequent? Many thanks. —MJ)
Our Entire Series of Photo Book Posts:
Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part I: Reissues by Mike Johnston
Mike's Great Empirical Milwaukee Bookstore Walkabout by Mike Johnston
We All Love Photography Now, It's Official! by Martin Parr (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part II)
Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part III: New Books by Mike Johnston
Jeff Ladd's List (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part IV) by Jeff Ladd
-
Featured Comment by Greg Smith: "Galen Rowell's book Mountain Light is remarkable in two ways: 1) his images are top-of-the-line first rate, regardless who might complain about his techniques and, more importantly I think, 2) the accompanying text detailing what he did, and why, goes beyond excellent and becomes a post-graduate text curriculum of outdoor photography. My copy of this book is dog-eared, highlighted, studied hard and long because it clearly and precisely tells how-to...it is no mystery why it keeps on selling: the images and text are timeless and valuable beyond mere dollars. If you only get one photo book, there are good reasons for this to be the one."
Ansel Adams, Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail (deluxe edition)
Little, Brown & Company, 2006
Printed at The Arion Press
$1,200
Reviewed by Geoff Wittig
Reviewing this very high end photo book is akin to an auto magazine looking at the Bugatti Veyron; most folks will never encounter one, but it's interesting to know what's achievable. As an example of fine letterpress printing and state-of-the-art photographic reproduction, this volume is exceptional. As a genuine work of art with a heritage, its qualities go much deeper; it is a lineal descendant of Adams ' best work.
Permit me to explain. Fine book printing is a genuine art form with its own conventions and acknowledged masterpieces. In modern form it descends from William Morris's attempt in the 1890s to rescue book printing from a debased "industrial" level. A relative handful of artisan-printers in Europe and America produced small editions of gorgeously printed books from roughly 1900 to the 1960s, though the movement was mostly moribund after World War II. A tiny number of fine art printers soldier on to this day. Among the very best were Edwin and Robert Grabhorn in San Francisco; their masterpiece was Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1930). This beautiful book was letterpress printed on hand-made paper with meticulous care. The text was set by hand in Goudy Newstyle, a typeface with a distinctive personality matching Whitman's exuberant verse. It is consistently included on lists of the finest books ever printed in America.
Early in his career Ansel Adams developed a familiarity with the art and craft of book printing. From the start he worked diligently to have photographic reproductions, in his words, “as good as you can possibly get them.” In 1937, at the peak of his artistic powers, he was invited to produce a fine art limited edition book. Walter Starr, a wealthy businessman, underwrote the cost of a book on the Sierra Nevada mountain range as a memorial to his son, who had died in a climbing accident. Adams threw himself into the project, struggling for the better part of a year to get adequate photo reproductions to match the fine letterpress text printing. The final result was an exquisite work. Sierra Nevada: the John Muir Trail was released in 1938 as an edition of 500 copies, and it was immediately recognized as an artistic triumph. Good copies currently go for more than $12,000. (Yes, that’s three zero’s).
Adams also deliberately sought out the finest printers for his own portfolios. The Grabhorn brothers printed the text for his first three print portfolios. His last three portfolios were printed by Adrian Wilson, a revered craftsman/printer of the 1960s and '70s. Adams worked strenuously to achieve adequate reproduction in mass market editions. In Little, Brown & Co. he found a commercial publisher willing to meet his standards; consequently the Ansel Adams titles currently in print display nearly uniform quality photo reproduction.
Little, Brown & Co. released a new edition of Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail in 2006. This new version contains the original foreword written by Adams in 1938, together with a history of the genesis and creation of the original book. It displays modern, high quality reproductions of the 50 photographs found in the original, many of which have never been published in book form since. In the modestly priced ($50 list, $31.50 at Amazon) trade edition
Higher altitudes
The companion limited edition is on another level entirely. This edition of 500 copies is actually produced by the Arion Press, the renowned San Francisco printing house established in the 1960s by Andrew Hoyem. At 12.5 x 16.5" it is constructed of linen over board with a matching slipcase. The title is inlaid into the spine and cover. The paper is Somerset cotton rag. The individual photographs are printed on a silk-finish paper by stochastic tritone printing, then "tipped in," or glued along their top edge to the cotton rag page. The text is something really special. It's printed letterpress, using hand-set metal type which is inked and then pressed into the page. Running your fingers down a line of text, you can feel the sculptural impression. This is the method used by fine printers from the time of Gutenberg down to approximately 1970, when cheap and fast (but flat and soulless) offset printing replaced it. The typeface used is Goudy Newstyle, which was used to print the Grabhorn Leaves of Grass in 1930. And it’s not just the same design; it’s the very same metal type! Andrew Hoyem partnered with Robert Grabhorn in the 1960s, and took over the Grabhorn brothers’ historic type collection. Like other Arion Press books it displays an elegant design; margins are generous, the title page classical and restrained, the typesetting immaculate. A traditional colophon at the end elaborates on the paper, type and printing method used. You will never see a more beautifully printed book.
There are many genuinely excellent photo books for sale at fairly reasonable prices these days. Somewhere around $40 seems to be the going rate for a decent sized book with good reproductions, though recently I see that Taschen is publishing a new series of perfectly nice photo books for the bargain price of $14.99, God bless 'em. For personal study and to build a "working library" of inspirational photography, seeking out worthwhile titles is a pleasant challenge. Cruise the remainder tables and you can find really nice books for $10–$20 or less. But if you love books and have a bunch of discretionary cash, consider this: for about the price of the average name-brand ƒ/2.8 zoom lens, you can own a letterpress photography book by America's greatest living printer. It's a genuine work of art.
As of last week, the Ansel Adams Gallery was offering a deal on this grand book: for $1,250 you get the book and an actual 8x10" gelatin silver print ("Bridalveil Fall, Yosemite Valley"). This is one of the "Yosemite special edition" photographs, printed in the darkroom by Alan Ross from the Ansel Adams negative. And, yes, I bought one.
________________________
Geoff
(UPDATE: Amazon is now sold out of the remainder. If you go to the link and click "Available from these sellers" and then click on the "New" tab, there are two sellers advertising "multiple copies available" [TSCBOOKS and BORDEEBOOKS].That means that each of these sellers has some remainders, albeit at a somewhat higher price. Note that these sellers may still appear to have copies available even after they sell out, so don't be too disappointed if you take a shot at this and miss. —MJ)
This week's "Recommended by M.J." book is Aftermath: Unseen 9/11 Photos by a New York City Cop
John Botte has taken it on the chin every which way for all kinds of things, which strikes me as yet another playing-out of the always popular game "blame the photographer." He was "on the clock" while photographing at the site; some people feel he should have been "helping," as if documenting at a disaster scene isn't one of many valid ways to be useful. He's been accused of "profiting" from 9/11—right, as if one photobook is any kind of effective way to cash in (anyone who's put out a photo book is shaking their heads. More photo books lose money than make money, and the very fact that this one is remaindered points to its not being one of the latter). And never mind that being on the scene damn near killed the photographer—it ruined his lungs and his career (he's been on disability since 2003), and led to more medical bills than the book will ever begin to compensate him for. He's even been criticized because the book has the same title as art photographer Joel Meyerowitz's book on Ground Zero
The Botte book is, among other things, the only book of pictures of the 9/11 disaster shot with a Leica camera (an M6) in black & white, which led to Leica issuing a John Botte commemorative M7, mainly to present to Mr. Botte for his heroism. (The camera, as far as I know, has been withdrawn from public sale. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.) Sadly, this has let him in for even more criticism, as people with nothing better to complain about accuse the photographer—blameless as can be—for further "profiting" from 9/11. Here's what renowned Leica repairperson Sherry Krauter said about John Botte's camera: it "was made specially for John to pay tribute to his fallen colleagues, and to John himself who sustained life-threatening injuries in his service with the NYPD at 911. This camera is not being produced by Leica in any quantity whatsoever, nor will it ever be. This camera was made specifically for John and is the only one of its kind.
"John is one of the most talented individuals to walk thru my door in 30 years of repairing Leicas. The old adage that states, 'If a picture is worth 1,000 words,' John's are worth 5,000 words! He had an opening at the Frankfurt airport at the first anniversary of 911. It was one of the only shows I know of that was held over for an additional term. Several million people were able to view his work. He is an extremely talented photographer. I look forward to John's book, Aftermath, which is the only book of its kind, shot entirely using Leica cameras and black and white film."
(A final note: If you want to express outrage about John Botte or his book or his Leica, please go do it elsewhere. I think it's bullshit. The world needs more documentary photographers, not fewer, and anyway, this post is just to recommend a remaindered book that is being cleared out at a loss—I assure you, its author is not profiting from it.)
___________________
Mike
Big news in the small world of photo book collecting: Jeff Ladd, who wrote Part IV of our series on Great Photo Books You Can Buy New and who writes the excellent photobook review blog 5B4, has announced a labor of love that he's been working on for months and thinking about for much longer: Errata Editions.
A number of years ago, responding to the ever-escalating market for collectible vinyl LPs, several vendors started producing lovingly-made reissues of great classics. Expensive at $30 or so each, they still cost only a fraction of what vintage originals cost—and in many cases were more practical, since they were better made and adding wear to them wasn't such a dire issue.
Errata Editions' "Books on Books" series hopes to do something similar for genuinely rare and generally unobtainable photobooks, conveying the substance of the originals and the feel of an ownership experience. I urge you to read about the project on 5B4; Jeff and his business partners, Valerie Sonnenthal and Ed Grazda, are taking a very interesting approach, not creating facsimiles but in essence creating new books that have as their illustrations every page of the original books, "so the viewer can see not only all of the photographs, but the page layout, typography and all aspects that make up the original including all of the written texts."
The first four titles are Eugene Atget, Photographe de Paris; Walker Evans, American Photographs (1938 edition); Sophie Ristelhueber, Fait; and Chris Killip, In Flagrante. The books will be distributed by DAP through ordinary bookstore channels starting in early 2009. Pricing is expected to be $40 per volume.
A noble project and a fine prospect, sez me. Jeff will be blogging from on press in China starting Monday. I'll post links.
_______________________
Mike
This week's "Recommended by M.J." (right sidebar) is an "opportunity window" in the photobook collecting field...a very hot title that had apparently come and gone, but has been (temporarily, we assume) revived in a second edition identical to the first. You can see a bit of the work here. The price of this will go nowhere but up just as soon as this goes out of print again, which it will probably do soon, so if you have any interest you should absolutely strike whilst the proverbial iron is hot.
Also new to maison TOP is a very interesting-looking new National Geographic title by the renowned Sam Abell, whom we last encountered when his work was appropriated by artist (and cheeky fellow) Richard Prince. Called The Life of a Photograph
Finally, there's some new, different, significant, and I think very exciting news in the photobook arena that has just been announced. I've known about it for months—or at least have been hearing about it, without particulars—and have just been waiting until I could tell you about it. I'm preparing a big post about it now that I hope to have up by tomorrow evening or sooner. Well, maybe Friday. It's genuinely big news if you care about photobooks. So stay tuned for that.
_______________________
Mike
Reviewed by Geoff Wittig
Night Vision by Troy Paiva
Chronicle Books, 2008
Paperback, 9.6 x 8.8"
$24.95 ($16.47 at Amazon)
-
Night photography is a tiny corner of the larger photography world, with its own quirks and foibles. Some of the better known fine art photographers such as George Tice, Chip Forelli, Michael Kenna and Helen Garber have featured night exposures in their work. If "conventional" photography has been feeling a bit stale for you, check it out. It provides a huge range of possibilities, from grainy high-ISO urban reportage to dream-like long exposures of moonlit shores. Metering and exposure is generally problematic, requiring lots of trial and error. Back in the prehistoric days of film this meant shooting a roll of film and getting it back from the lab days or even (for Kodachrome, in my case) weeks later, seeing what went wrong, and trying again. The long lead time made iterative learning a real chore, but the final results when everything goes right can be spectacular. Digital capture shortens the whole learning cycle dramatically; things are much easier now. There's a fascinating website devoted to night photography called The Nocturnes; it's well worth exploring if you have any interest.
Within the night photography world there is a smaller subculture devoted to exploration of abandoned buildings and relics, associated with the "UrbEx" phenomenon of urban exploration. Sort of like punk skateboarders, only with cameras. Troy Paiva's new book Night Vision mines this vein of imaging, and follows a path he began exploring with his previous book, Lost America: the Abandoned Roadside West
Night Visions has five subsections, each devoted to a different subject, ranging from an abandoned hotel to desert ghost towns to abandoned cold-war military bases to an aircraft boneyard. The brief foreword by Geoff Manaugh invokes authors from W.G. Sebald to J.G. Ballard in an attempt to link Paiva's work to a larger artistic tradition. Paiva's own introduction is a lot more down-to-earth, describing in some detail his technique and the unusual appeal of exploring industrial relics at night. The images themselves vary from moody moonlight desolation to crumbling buildings to derelict aircraft wreckage garishly lit in green and red. The overall impression is that of tacky post-apocalyptic grandeur, sort of Ozymandias of the strip-mall.
Physically the book is compact with a nice quality flexible cover. Color quality would be difficult to judge given the odd nature of the images themselves, but they certainly look striking enough. They are set in black pages which emphasize their nocturnal character. My only complaint is that the text, set in an inoffensive sans-serif font, is printed in Prussian blue against the black page at a fairly small point size. This makes it a real challenge for my middle-aged eyes.
Paiva's work follows a consistent æsthetic theme in exploring his unusual subject. If you like the look, you'll love the book.
For further reading
For those who find night photography interesting, there are a number of resources to tap, beginning with the Nocturnes website above. Andrew Sanderson's Night Photography
_______________________
Geoff
Featured Comment by Jill Waterman: "Thanks, Geoff, for the mention of my new book, Night and Low Light Photography, at the end of Troy's book review. For anyone interested to get a sneak peek at what my book has to offer I recently launched a companion website. In addition to profiles of the 30 contributors and other content areas, the site features a regularly updated guest artist portfolio, the first of which presents a selection of images from Troy's new title. Please pay the site a visit and check back for updates!"
Featured Comment by Jason: "I'll recommend a fantastic book: Nocturnes
Mike adds: As people are suggesting other night photography books in the comments, I can't resist a mention of the granddaddy of this genre, Paris By Night
While photographing Paris de nuit, Brassaï was rounded up several times in late-night police raids, because the gendarmes refused to believe that it was possible to photograph in the middle of the night!
This is kind of funny, but for some reason nobody pays any attention to the "Recommended This Week" product link on the right-hand side of the page. In the dozen or so weeks I've been putting them up, I think maybe twenty people have actually ordered one of the books. (Granted, the link goes to Amazon U.S., and many of our readers are in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia. But still.)
In a recent comment, Ken T. even wrote:
That Katrin Eismann book
While I'm recommending such books I have to also highly recommend Leslie Alsheimer's Black and White in Photoshop CS3 and Photoshop Lightroom
At the time, I'd just taken down the product link for Leslie Alsheimer's book from the "Recommended This Week" slot, where it had been for six days.
Actually, that one didn't do too badly—five people ordered one.
It's especially invisible when you can't even see what the book's about. This week's title, for instance—American Horizons—is about the work of Art Sinsabaugh, subject of the recent PBS documentary that many of you might have seen (I missed it the first time it was on, although I'm scouring the listings for a rerun. Naturally I've known Art Sinsabaugh's work for years—decades, actually).
Anyway, I should probably just delete that little feature. Or else call attention to them in posts like this one. I dunno. Anyway, check it out once in a while, if you remember.
- Your friendly quasi-local virtual bookstore proprietor,
- —Mike
NOTE: Amazon is "temporarily out of stock" of American Horizons, as of 9 p.m.
UPDATE by Ken Tanaka: For those planning a visit to Monterey, California (or looking for a good excuse to take a trip to this wonderful area) "American Horizons" is making its final showing at the Monterey Museum of Art until September 7th. It's absolutely worth seeing. This is very genuine photography mostly captured with a big ol' banquet camera, free of steroids, artificial sweeteners or preservatives, created by a goggles-on, certifiable OCD-suffering, chain-smoking photomaniac. (No, the Museum isn't compensating me for promotion.)
Today is the centennial of Henri Cartier-Bresson's birth. The great Frenchman. I think I'll celebrate by taking down my copy of Henri Cartier-Bresson Photographer
___________________
Mike
(P.S. Before I went to look for it just now I have to admit I had no idea that this book was still in print. Learn something new every day!)
By Jeff Ladd
(Note: This continues our series on "Great Photo Books You Can Buy New." For links to the other posts, see below. —MJ)
Any time someone is asked to make a list of recommendations, their personal biases will show in one way or another. When asked to make such a list I usually approach the task with the "desert island" scenario in mind, but that can be very predictable, as my desert island would have a library of the usual suspects working in the documentary traditions. So this isn’t a "best of" list but a "these are damn good books worth your attention" list. Check them out of the library first.
With having to name only a few, the major problem for me is being able to show diversity. Mine is basically a list of white men and two white women—but these are my choices and I stand by them. You will also notice that the photographers are working straight—as in, no digital trickery or composites. That is my other bias; I like to see photographers actually working out in the world and shaping smart and compelling photographs in the camera. I chose these books because I have owned them for a while and all continue to inform me in one way or another in terms of my pursuit of photography and, in some cases, in terms of book craft. In short, they do not get very dusty from neglect. Many are not the best books of these particular artists, the main criteria of this list being availability, yet I would add that they all are finely crafted books.
So, I will take it for granted that Robert Frank’s The Americans and the Diane Arbus Aperture monograph are already on your shelf and they are in need of new company (because that Jim Nachtwey book is so depressing for them to be left alone with). If Arbus and Frank aren’t on your shelf, yet you own Vice magazine's The Vice Photo Book, then my list probably isn’t for you. I can say for sure that within the more than 1700 photos in the books listed below you will not find one picture of a dick in a hotdog bun. Cheers. I listed them in order of weight, not preference.
August Sander: People of the 20th Century
Koudelka
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Scrapbook
William Eggleston, Los Alamos
David Goldblatt Photographs
Taryn Simon, An Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
Stephen Shore, American Surfaces
Jacob Holdt, United States 1970–1975
Klaus Staeck, Pornografie
Tim Davis, My Life in Politics
Michael Schmidt, U-NI-TY
Robert Adams, The New West
Larry Clark, Tulsa
Nan Goldin, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency
_____________________
Jeff
Jeff Ladd is the proprietor of the website 5B4, certainly the best independent photography book review site on the web at this time. Well worth bookmarking. And though not all his 5B4 readers seem to know it, Jeff is also a gifted photographer himself. My thanks to him for adding his voice to our lists.
*These two, although recently available, are not actually still available new. —Ed.
-
Previous postings in our book series
Most recent at the top:
Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part III: New Books
We All Love Photography Now, It's Official! by Martin Parr (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part II)
Mike's Great Empirical Milwaukee Bookstore Walkabout
Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part I: Reissues
The 10 to 25 Books
- Fred Herzog, Old Man Main
In my post called "Great Photo Books You Can Buy New" a couple of weeks ago, one of the recommendations was for Canadian Fred Herzog's book Vancouver Photographs
So I'm just wondering—assuming some or most of you who bought the book have received it already, what did you think?
(Feel free to comment here on any of the other recommended titles you might have purchased, too, or gone to see. I'm interested to know which ones you really liked and which ones might just have been more of a Mike thing.)
_______________________
Mike
Featured Comment by Ben Johnson: "As a Vancouver photographer myself, I've been interested in Fred Herzog's work for some time now. Aside from admiring his strong images with wonderful colour, I also see much of his work as a record of a Vancouver that has all but disappeared: a sleepier city of the Commonwealth rather than a city with strong ties to the Asia-Pacific realm.
"His show at the Vancouver Art Gallery was hugely successful and, along with the publication of the book you recommended, really boosted Herzog's reputation internationally. It's interesting to see him get attention from people who are perhaps less familiar with Vancouver, but who see the quality in his work.
"Herzog was always a perfectionist about his equipment. I know folks who worked in camera stores in Vancouver who dealt with him on a regular basis. He had the reputation of one who would buy a particular lens and return it over and over until he got one that performed exactly as he wanted. Staff in the stores would have bets on how long it would take him to return a lens once he walked out the door."
Featured Comment by Wayne Bartsch: "I have known Fred for over thirty years. I work at a local camera store where we have sold him much of the equipment he uses or has used. He has always been quiet and soft-spoken but very definite in what he expected of his camera gear and photography. We have had many interesting discussions over the years about the areas in which the camera companies could have made better choices. I remember him lamenting the lack of a truly capable compact film camera suitable for his style. I also recall him having trouble finding a satisfactory version of a Nikkor lens(a 24-120 I believe). He brought in images that demonstrated the difference between the first and second one. I could not see the difference but he could and that is what counted.
"It is only in the years since his retirement from medical photography that I began to realize the scope and the beauty of his personal work. I saw his show twice and enjoyed it immensely. He gave me a signed copy of his book which is one of my all-time favourites. Well worth purchasing to anyone liking this style of work."
9 a.m. Saturday, Central Time:
___________________
Mike (Thanks to Aaron)
By Mike Johnston
In case you haven't been following along, recently we've tried to provide an extensive selection of book recommendations. The recommendations are for books that are available now, because so many photo books go in and out of print quickly and many "classic" recommendations aren't available—that's the raison d'etre of these lists. (I recently revisited my Amazon Listmania! list called "Readings for Practicing Photographers," compiled a number of years ago, and was amazed to see how many of them have gone out of print. All but one or two of them were available new when I compiled the list.)
Even in the time it took to put this list together, two books I wanted to include have gone out of print! It's ridiculous. It's like trying to fill a bucket of water with holes in the bottom. I'm afraid that if I delay the list any longer, some of the books listed below will be gone.
I realize we might have run you up to the limit of your book budget already. But assuming you haven't run out of patience or money, here's my own June 2008 list of a few "sure bet" new photo books that you can currently buy for retail price or lower.
1. Andreas Gursky
This title is a retrospective of Gursky's 21st-century work. It's a big, slender volume, with excellent reproductions (except, curiously, in the case of Gursky's most famous picture of this decade, "99 Cent," which is not well reproduced. Don't ask me. Maybe it's just too small in the book—his originals are very large). The book's covers are laminated, with no dust jacket, and there are five cover photographs: the one I have is pictured below right. (All the cover pictures are of people in a Korean stadium holding up cards to form pictures or designs from the other side of the stadium. You can't pick which one you prefer except in a hypothetical bookstore that would stock all five.)
Published in early 2007, this particular Gursky appears to be in the last stages of availability. Even though only 20% of the edition was slated for the U.S., the book is now unavailable in most parts of the world (and already selling for up to $150 on the used market in some places), but for the time being it's still available in the U.S. for $75. That makes for a golden (and decidedly temporary) opportunity for U.S. buyers or any others who don't mind dealing with the U.S. Amazon.
I confess I don't care for Gursky's work all that much myself—it's not the sort of thing that really floats my boat. Despite that slight personal reservation, this is a good sampler of his later efforts. If you want a chance at it, don't hesitate—no matter what the current situation really is, it won't be available for long. And I can virtually guarantee that it will be a good investment that will rise in value.
2. Larry Towell, The World From My Front Porch
I've always felt a certain slight distance from Towell's work...his radical compositions are dynamic and graphic, and there seems a certain insistence in that, to my eye—you might say his pictures "try too hard" if that weren't pejorative; "insistence" is better. I've always valued a certain offhandedness in pictures, a relaxed quality, a sense that a great picture could have been a snapshot. (Just my taste.) Towell (Eugene Richards too) always seems to be trying to bat me over the head with just how virtuosic he is, just how jazzily the subject elements can be loaded into the frame, like a pianist who is always showing off with too many trills, or a musician afraid of silence.
But this is Towell's best book, I think. It includes a great many wonderful pictures, including some of his most famous ones. Just don't expect the book as a whole to be too coherent an argument. (Do I choose my words carefully enough? More bluntly, it's the only way I know of to get the front porch work that I particularly enjoy. And then you get a "greatest hits" from his photojournalism thrown in.) Often beautiful. Certainly virtuosic. I'm coming to love many of these.
3. Luigi Ghirri, It's Beautiful Here, Isn't It...
4. Peter and David Turnley, McClellan Street
5. This next one was reviewed by Geoff Wittig: Helen Levitt
6. And of course I've written several times about Looking East
I think that the best way to learn photography is not to read instruction manuals and look for advice online, or seek out critiques, because all those methods are essentially negative. They'll tell you what not to do. A better way of learning is to pay close attention to great work. Look at it often, enjoy it, make decisions about it (decide what you like best, what you don't like so much). Let your eyes rest on it; drink it in. Let your thoughts go where the images lead...it will sink in, infect your seeing, maybe even without an effort. It's a more organic way of learning—more difficult day-to-day, I suppose, but more positive, more organic in the long run. It allows you to follow positive role models and grow into your own concerns, your own eye.
Anyway I love the reproductions in this book; they're so rich, so deep. If you have an interest in portraiture you should own it.
Fred Herzog, Crossing Main, 1984
7. ...And as a bookend for It's Beautiful Here, Isn't It… an even
more pure colorist, a guy I think can legitimately be described as a master of color: Fred Herzog. The book is Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs
It's difficult to reconstruct this now, but Herzog worked in a time when being a color photographer (he worked in Kodachrome) made him a maverick, even an outsider, and limited his opportunities. He sacrificed a lot for color. And he's a true colorist, I think. Notice how often his pictures are constructed out of a very particular color palette, and how color accents work in his pictures, balancing and echoing each other. In his work you really have to pay attention to the color, not just the scenes or the action or the way he's composed formal elements.
As far as I know you can only get this book from Amazon Canada; Photo Eye doesn't even list it. In case you're not Canadian, it's a little more difficult ordering a book from Amazon in another country, but in this case the effort is well worth the trouble. This will be a long-term treasure in a good photo book collection; I prize my copy.
If you don't like it, keep it in good condition, enjoy it for a couple of years, and then sell it for a nice profit.
_________________________
Mike
(Note: Part I of this series covered currently available reissues; Part II, although not marked as such, was the reprint of Martin Parr's Best Photo Books of 2007—most, although not all, of which are still obtainable new. Still to come are two more lists, one by a guest author and one by Geoff Wittig, who has written a number of book reviews for us already. —MJ)
Featured Comment by Michael: "The recommendation of Herzog is great. I thought it was a Hopper, until I read your description."
Featured Comment by Tom V: "The Fred Herzog pictures shown sent chills down my spine! Did anyone else see Edward Hopper in those two? Down to the hunch of the shoulders in the man crossing the street?"
Featured Comment by Alastair Bird: "...and Fred is one of the nicest, most gentle fellows you'll ever meet. I ran into him once, several years ago at the lab and we had a wonderful chat about his work and about how much I loved his use of colour. The show last year at the Vancouver Art Gallery was stellar—amazing to see so much colour from so long ago."
Featured Comment by Ken Ohrn: "Hi: When the Vancouver Art Gallery put on the Fred Herzog show, I went five times. The first time was to just scope it out. It was knockout city. The second time, I decided to concentrate on composition and lighting. The third time was to try and get a sense of something strange—how far away from his subjects was Herzog, and what angle of view did he use (I know, weird). The fourth time was colour. And the fifth time was with my pool-playing buddy Paul, to try and find the emotion in the photos.
"Each time, I came out with my world-view changed. I saw photos everywhere.
"I obviously bought the book, but as usual, even those excellent reproductions don't hold a candle to the huge, lovingly-made prints in the VAG's show. Not to be a shill or anything (I have no affiliation, I'm just an old goof with a camera), some of his prints may still be available from the Equinox Gallery in Vancouver."
(Martin Parr's Best Photo Books of 2007—originally published in the Sunday Times of London and reprinted on T.O.P. by kind permission of the author. Purchase links are provided after the titles where appropriate; "n.a." means not available.)
By Martin Parr
2007 has been quite a year for photography in the U.K. Our two biggest cultural institutions have belatedly turned their attention to the charms of this pertinent and democratic medium. In May 2007, Tate Britain mounted their first exhibition dedicated to British photography (How We Are)—a venture that proved hugely popular. Although they had announced their newfound enthusiasm for photography in 2003 with the epic Cruel and Tender exhibition at Tate Modern, this was the first Tate show to deal with homegrown imagery.
Not to be outdone, the BBC is transmitting "The Genius of Photography," a series that updates the history of photography, an idea not attempted on British television for over 25 years. This is somewhat surprising, as the popularity and accessibility of photography is never in doubt. Now that everybody in the country can be a photographer, thanks to mobile phones, the appetite for intelligent debate on the medium has never been greater. What better way of feeding this than enjoying some of 750 photography books distributed in the U.K. this year alone?
My first choice is The Genius of Photography U.K.
Photography publishing is much enriched in the U.K. by a handful of small independent photography publishers such as Chris Boot, Dewi Lewis and Trolley. They have had a good year and my next choices come from these sources.
I’m a Real Photographer by Keith Arnatt (Chris Boot, U.K.
The Mother of all Journeys by Dinu Li (Dewi Lewis, U.K.
There have been a few books this year that feature North Korea, that fascinating Stalinist theme park. For me the best of these was Charlie Crane’s Welcome to Pyongyang ( Chris Boot, U.K.
Many Western photographers are attracted to China to document the remarkable transformations taking place in this country. A China Chronicle by Zeng Li (MCCM Creations, U.K.
Closer to home, the new whiz kid of British documentary, Stephen Gill, has decided that the best thing for him to do is publish his own books. And what a treat of a trilogy he has produced this year. Hackney Flowers (Nobody/ Archive of Modern Conflict, U.K.
Paul Graham is British documentary photographer who now lives in the U.S.A. He has produced A Shimmer of Possibility (Steidl, U.K.
Britain’s best known photojournalist is Don McCullin who has recently published In England (Random House, U.K.
An American Index of The Hidden and Unfamiliar by Taryn Simon (Steidl, U.K.
Another unfamiliar subject crops up in Nein, Onkel (No, Uncle) edited by Timothy Prus and Ed Jones (Archive of Modern Conflict, U.K.
Alec Soth is a renowned documentary photographer who has recently branched out into fashion. In his Fashion Magazine (Magnum Photos, U.K.
For my final choice, I have to declare an interest. Magnum, Magnum (Thames and Hudson, U.K.
Most of these books will be available at good bookshops, but a few like Nein, Onkel and China Chronicle may have to sourced at a specialist photo-bookshop like the Photographers’ Gallery in London.
_________________________
Martin
Portrait of Martin Parr (top right) by Peter Stubbs. Used with permission.
Have a friend or relative who loves to snap pictures but hasn't gotten very good at it yet, or who's just starting out? Here's the book for them.
We recommended Nick Kelsh's How To Photograph Your Life
Nick's approach is simple and very accessible: he takes a series of ordinary family picture situations, shows what an average "bad snapshot" would look like (we'll all recognize these), then gives some basic principles for how to do it better (in plain, simple, easy-to-follow language). Then he shows his result. In every case it's obvious what he did and how it helped—there's no question his "after" pictures are much stronger and more pleasing.
Putting his basic principles into practice would help any snapshooter or rank beginner get better in a hurry. Nothing bad about that. We all have to start somewhere.
___________________
Mike (Thanks again to Adam)
There's something I've been meaning to mention at the end of each of about the past five months: just "thank you" to all the people who have ordered anything from Amazon through the links on this site. The income for me is not generous, but it's substantial, and I'm grateful for it. So, thank you. Very much. I really mean it.
The empirical survey method
That said, I don't write about books exclusively in the hope that you'll buy a book from Amazon after linking to it from T.O.P. and put, say, 72¢ or $1.51 in my pocket. Fact is, to write this present series of posts (three from me—one down, two to go—plus we'll have three Guest Lists) has cost me more money, easily, than I'll make from it. Why? Because I've bought a stack of books as high as my kneecap in order to write about them.
I'm not necessarily complaining. But it has been expensive.
I've also done a city-wide store survey. And you know what the cost of fuel has been. This year I went through the months of January and February on one tank of gas, which tickles my "cheap gene." Rabbiting all over town looking at books, wantonly burning car fuel as I go, has also been a sort of sacrifice, although I guess only because it has injured my self-concept as a tightwad.
So why a survey? Well, I fancy that I'm an empiricist. Basically, empiricism is a mode of inquiry based on observation, as opposed to thinking or theorizing or experimentation or any of the other modus operandi by which we might acquire knowledge.
I'll give you an example of one of my empirical surveys: I used to like stereos. I was what is known as an "audiophile." It's basically a generational hobby among us baby-boomers. We were young when music briefly experienced a Renaissance phase in which its cultural importance was temporarily greatly magnified. (The period began in 1963 when the Beatles arrived in America, serving to distract the populus from the shocking gundown of John Kennedy, and lasted for twenty or twenty-five years thereafter; now known, roughly, as the "classic era" of rock and roll.) Stereos were a high-status toy to males of my generation, like electric trains to the generation previous and video game consoles to the generation after. Anyway, when I moved abruptly to Chicago in 1993, I didn't know anything about the audio salons in the area, so I decided to do a survey.
I made a list of all the stereo stores in town. The idea was that I would visit each one dressed in nondescript clothing, take note of how I was treated by the staff, then ask to listen to the best demonstration equipment they had available and evaluate it purely on the basis of sound quality—that is, regardless of how cool it looked or how esoteric it was or how much money it cost.
(I should explain (confess?) that I hoped to write an article about the experience, for one of the big audiophile magazines. But I never did.)
The Great Chicagoland Audio Emporium Survey was more interesting than you might think, however. For one thing, one inescapable conclusion I came to is that some extremely expensive stereos didn't sound very good. Even some hoity-toity high-end salons apparently aren't competent to put a decent-sounding system together. Another is that even a tall WASP-y looking white guy wearing jeans can get treated with almost unbelievable rudeness in certain types of retail stores. If I were black and got treated the way I was treated at one shop, I would definitely have ascribed it to racism. But that wasn't their motive—they were equal opportunity a-holes. That place is out of business now, a fate it well deserved.
Anyway, the survey served its purpose: I was able to identify what I thought were the three best audio stores in the Chicagoland area at the time*. In all three cases, the best demo sound at each was very different than at the others, but all three knew how to do it up right. The stores' reward for winning my contest was that from then on, I hung around and wasted lots of their salespeoples' time. Heh.
(Not really. I'm always honest about whether I intend to buy anything, and I did spend a lot of money at one store.)
The bookstore survey
Anyway, last week I decided to do the same thing with Milwaukee area bookstores, specifically looking for photography books. I'm sure I didn't find every store in Milwaukee and environs that sells photo books, but I hit the major ones.
The news is good and bad.
My three regular stops in my own immediate area include two stores that stock a decent number of photography books. One sells new, and the other used. I formerly considered this paucity of sources to be a hardship—yet another unavoidable drawback of living in the boondocks. The good news I discovered is that I'm much better off than I thought I was: both my regular new store (a Barnes and Noble) and my regular used shop (a Half-Price Books chain store) compare favorably to anything else around here. The bad news is that there's no really good photo book store in the city. The two biggest used shops I found in my area both had lame motleys of shabby, old, and undesirable photo books, and the "big" Borders store in the heart of downtown had one of the worst photo sections I've ever seen in a major retail bookstore: two and a half two-and-a-half-foot shelves, and half of what they had was trashy pop stuff. Woeful. (I guess Borders isn't doing so hot these days: it made the wrong decision when it decided not to sell online, and there have been rumors that it's going to be up for sale soon. Still, no excuse.)
I checked only one of the big University book stores, but I didn't find much reason to go back.
Best discovery? The museum store at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM). So that's a tip: If you're looking for good places to find excellent photo books, check your local art museum if you have one. It might not have a lot, but if it's like the MAM, it might have some things you'll see nowhere else.
The Milwaukee Art Museum
Otherwise, the only trend I noticed was that the best chain stores are those in or near the wealthiest suburbs, rather than downtown. I don't know if that would hold true for your area, but it might.
Single copy searches
If you're looking for one particular book (and, if you become enthusiastic about collecting, sooner or later you will), the best sources are Ebay and ABEbooks. Originally "Advanced Book Exchange," a name they now downplay, abebooks.com is one of the great etailer success stories of the web; it has never required any venture capital to fund its growth, and now facilitates almost $200 million in book sales annually between consumers and small and medium-sized bookshops all over the world. Abebooks owns JustBooks in Europe and recently bought Bookfinder, and has many country-specific websites. It makes up in selection and volume what Ebay lacks.
Despite the great convenience of these online sources, I've had decidedly mixed experiences with each. I've had it take excessively long times to receive books I'd purchased; I've had books arrive really poorly packed, and/or damaged; and I've gotten books in much worse condition than they were described. Because the books come from hither and yon, from all sorts of sellers, there's no consistency at all. A recent "like new" paperback purchased through Abebooks, for instance, proved to have underlining throughout the first half of the book. (What I imagine is that the store's buyer grabbed the book, glanced at the cover, flipped through half the book starting from the back, scribbled "like new" on the manifest, and moved on to the next book.) To the seller's credit, he immediately refunded my entire purchase price, including shipping. But the whole rigamarole is a PITA nonetheless.
Still, there are some things you might want that you just can't find any other way, and both of these resources are important—especially abebooks.com.
The Great Remainder Showdown
The other major source of fine photo books in excellent condition is to buy remainders. Don't think remainders are all garbage just because some of them are: I remember when I was in art school in the early '80s I saw a whole stack of remainders—sitting on the floor, no less—of one particular book that now can simply not be purchased for less than $300, with $400 more the norm. Price then? Five bucks for each pristine copy. That was 80% off the new price at the time. (Do I wish I'd bought the whole stack? Not really, because then I would have had to store and move them in the years since. If you have a huge house and never plan to move, buying up remainders might be a smart idea. For most of us, it's not.)
The two major online sources of remainders are Edward R. Hamilton (its photography page is here) and Daedalus Books (photography page here). As part of my survey I bought this book from Hamilton, and I can recommend it, especially if you have a scientific and historical cast to your interests—it's a handsome, well-made book with lots of pictures in it I'd never seen before. Note the price: $7.95 for a $60 book, which is the effective equivalent of "free." On the same day, I ordered a couple of books from Daedalus, including this one. (Again, note the price.) I figured I'd pit the two against each other and see whose service was quickest and most efficient and whose products were best. (All in the service of research, of course. See what I do for you?)
So who won? Both outfits confirmed my order by email within hours, and the books were on my doorstep within a few days. Both came very well packed, and all the books were in pristine new condition, most of them shrinkwrapped. In other words, I got ideal service from both places.
The only downsides I can see to ordering remainders from these suppliers is a) you kinda have to know what you're after, which requires a fair amount of familiarity with the current book market; and b) you're not rewarding the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into making the book in the first place. In some cases this latter consideration might not be important to you, but in some cases it might be.
Meta-conclusion
One lesson of the survey is that I am personally simply not in a position to act as an omniscient observer and reviewer of the photo book market, on your behalf or for myself, because I don't have physical access to an acceptable percentage of currently available new books. Milwaukee's not a big enough city to support a really good specialist photo-book bookstore, and the sum total of the books available to me for direct inspection is limited. I can do a pretty good job—I certainly have a lot more books to look at than I can afford to buy for myself—but omniscient, no. A really serious photo book reviewer would either have to buy a large number of photo books or live in one of the world's cultural capitals. (Or both.)
I suspect, also, that unless you live in a large city (two million population or more), you might not have great access to photo books either. It could require a fair amount of persistent sleuthing to locate your own best local sources.
Upshot? Just that some combination of methods is the best way to build up a collection. Order books from Amazon through T.O.P.'s links, yes. (Please.) But also find a good used bookstore in your area with a generous and rotating selection; know where your best local stores are; and check out the museum store at your local art museum, if you have one. Use Ebay and Abebooks.com to find specific out-of-print titles you want, and keep an eye on the remainder houses. Even if you buy only one book a month, the more informed you are, and the better a selection you have from which to choose, the better your choice will be.
____________________
Mike
*In case you're a Chicagoan and you're interested, the stores I thought had the best demonstrations at that time (and the salespeople I got the most knowledgable treatment from) were Van L Speakerworks (Van), Audio Consultants in Evanston (Simon), and Holm Audio (Albert), which was then at a different location than it is now. Bear in mind that this was 15 years ago.
Featured Comment by John Camp: "There are a bunch of Half-Price Books stores in the Twin Cities, and that's where I buy probably 70% of my photo books. One thing I like is that they buy books from locals, so that the stock in the different stores is somewhat variable—and occasionally you'll run into a pile of books from what is apparently an estate sale. If I'm still alive when Mike J. kicks, for example, I plan to hang around his Half-Price Books for a while....
"The problem with museums is that they're expensive. If you're buying several books at a museum, look into buying a membership first—they're usually cheap, offer a discount on books, and you can often get back the price of the membership with a couple of purchases, plus you get free admission to the museum for a year or so.
"Borders is in desperate financial condition, and the company is looking for a buyer (which may well turn out to be Barnes and Noble, if they can clear away some anti-trust questions.) In any case, there have been several reports that Borders is no longer buying many expensive, low-turnover books, i.e. art books. They used to be a good source for photo books, but since sometime last summer, have not been.
"I can vouch for the book stores in Santa Monica, mentioned above, but they are expensive. I found a gorgeous book in one of them—can't remember what, probably because of post-traumatic stress—and they wanted like a thousand dollars for it. Hint: if it's wrapped in hard shiny plastic and rip-resistant tape, you can't afford it. (You may be able to afford it financially, but your karma will take a big hit.)"
Featured Comment by Janne: "If you happen to be looking for some no longer in print photo books in the Japanese market (hey, it can happen), your best bet is probably Rakuten—Japanese site similar to Ebay (if you're looking for used lenses and stuff there's plenty here too). It's all in Japanese of course, and many sellers won't deal with foreigners (too much risk and too much hassle), but there's a site set up to help:
http://photojpn.org/istore/proxyrakuten.php
"Basically, you tell them what you want to buy, they buy it locally, charge you in turn, and send it on. And if you have any questions but are hampered by your lack of Japanese, they can translate and forward the answers. A caveat is that I have not used them myself (I live here already) but I have heard good things about this service from others. I should add that they help you buy from all kinds of sources, like Japanese photography museums and such too, not just Rakuten and Yahoo auctions."
By Mike Johnston
8 Recommended Reissues
Mike's pick of the current crop of classics.
1. Robert Frank, The Americans
2. John Szarkowski, William Eggleston's Guide
While I'm on the subject, I have to add that I'm tired of people claiming ostentatiously that they don't "get" Eggleston. It's not that hard, folks. It's snapshot-aesthetic Americana, circa 1976, the apotheosis of the old 3R (3 1/2 x 5") Kodacolor drugstore print which was the form of demotic photography in America for a couple of decades. Read the essay, look at the pictures. They're just pictures; it's not some sort of secret society with a little peephole on the door with a secret password no one's told you about.
3. John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye
However, you have to bring it to this book. Do not browse; peruse. Look carefully, look long. Think of it like the great curator handing you pictures to look at from out of an endless pile, and attend.
4. Bill Owens, Suburbia
The new book is not a reprint, strictly speaking. It's a new edition, a rethinking. Weak pictures have been deleted, new pictures (many color ones, most obviously, but also some black and whites) have been added, the ordering's been changed, and a new introduction's been added. Overall it's the same book, though, just better in every way—better reproductions, better sequencing, better picture selection—"new and improved" indeed, as the starburst on the cover brightly proclaims.
Sadly, I can't recommend Bill Owens' recently published retrospective from Damiani, the one with the beautiful weed-whacker cover. The B&W reproductions just do not meet my minimum standards.
5. Lisette Model
Steichen said of Model's pictures that they "...are often camera equivalents of bitter tongue lashings. She strikes swift, hard and sharp, then comes to a dead stop, for her work is devoid of all extraneous devices or exaggerations."
6. Robert Adams, The New West: Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range
Some "movements" in photography are essentially back-formations—"The New York School," which John Gossage and Jane Livingston pretty much made up out of whole cloth for a 1992 book about a bunch of disparate photographers who all happened to have worked in New York, is a case in point. (Good book, though.) The New Topographics was a more coherent movement. It took its name from a seminal 1975 exhibition curated by William Jenkins at the George Eastman House in Rochester (I used to have the catalogue, and I gave it away, if you can believe that, which I still regret). Again, the work needs to be seen in its historical context: the heroic, unpeopled landscape photography of Adams and Weston et al still prevailed in those days, at least among the public, but was becoming increasingly alien to the actual condition of the American West. Robert Adams reputedly promised himself early in his career that he would not take a picture that didn't contain some trace of human presence. I personally think Adams's From the Missouri West is a better book, but this one was more closely tied to the movement and was more influential. And you can get this one. The New Topographics as a whole had an enormous influence on photography in both the U.S. and Europe.
This is a straight facsimile reissue, a solidly well-made book, as clean as sunlight. Some of Adams's most memorable work.
Two I haven't seen
Rather than straight recommendations, these last two are books I recommend you look at yourself before buying, because I haven't seen either of them. Recently, I drove all around my city, surveying the available bookstores. I'll post about that experience separately, but nowhere in my peregrinations did I see either of these titles. Of course I know the originals very well, but you should look at these for yourself and only take a flier on them if you accept the risk for yourself. Sorry about that, but I can't buy everything—this writing-about-books project is already costing me a bloody fortune.
7. Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places: The Complete Works
8. Lee Friedlander, Self Portrait
Any I missed?
So that's Part I of my list—I also plan to add sections about great current books and great didactic titles. What do you think—did I miss any worthy reissues you would have named?
Next in this series: Martin Parr's list.
_______________________
Mike
Featured Comment by _#_: "One of the most important books on the early days of color photography that I am aware of and have been impressed by is by photographer Saul Leiter, titled Early Color. Now there's a painter taking color "snapshots." Eggleston Schmeggleston! ;-) "
Mike replies: That's true, but Leiter's Early Color is one of the paragon examples of the current mania for photo book collecting, whereby recent out-of-print books are bid up to price levels that put them out of reach for most of us. The whole point of my current lists is to name books that are both sure bets and are also available new for no more than retail price. Take a look at this page, which lists a few "used" copies of Early Color for sale. What's more, copies are scarce even at those prices.
Featured Comment by Allen George: "I used to feel the same way about Stephen Shore. I passed up Uncommon Places multiple times—found the subject matter banal, found the photos unappealing. That changed completely last year. I don't how to explain it or why it happened; it was as if it suddenly expressed how I saw the world. There's a certain...distance (maybe dispassion?)...when it comes to the photographs in it. It's almost as if an outsider stepped into the 1970s and started very intently staring at things. I guess that's one of the strongest sensations I got from Uncommon Places: that of being an outsider. And I don't know if this comes under the heading of framing, but another aspect of Uncommon Places that struck me: that so many of the photographs—especially the outdoor ones—are about geometry, about the relationship between blocks of color, between lines and forms…Anyways, if you've passed up Uncommon Places in the past give it a try again—you may be surprised."
Making its way around the photo-blogosphere (I heard about it from Jason Anderson at Canon Blogger who heard about it from David Hobby at Strobist) is a terrific Talks@Google video of Joe McNally giving one of the presentations on which his current book is based.
Joe McNally
I have to admit I don't like watching video. Video just means I have to turn the music off, which I find almost physically uncomfortable; I work at my desk, of course, but what I'm really doing here—what keeps me chained to the leg of the desk—is music. I can do without it for 22 minutes a day to watch Jon Stewart (although sometimes—mea culpa—I skip the author interview), but that's about my limit. Voluntarily turning off the music for an hour and ten minutes is like going without a sufficient amount of air for that long. I'd much rather read something than have to sit still for the same information to go by on a video.
The Joe McNally video, however, was worth turning off the jazz. It's one of those "windows into the world of photography" that you find every so often (another is "At Close Range," about Joel Sartore). It's a great talk, even if most of McNally's laugh lines don't get laughs from the Google wonks. (The lines are still very funny. I laughed a number of times when the non-virtual audience didn't.) There's a whole lot of insight here—earned insight. Lots to look at, lots to think about. Worth giving up your air for an hour.
It's eloquent when he asks his audience things like, "Anybody
remember Ozzie Smith?" and the response is silence. Right there is one of the
problems of being an assignment location photographer—news doesn't stay
news. (Nobody ever forgot Ozzie Smith who ever saw him.)
Here's the book. It's called The Moment It Clicks: Photography secrets from one of the world's top shooters
Some photo enthusiasts like the tech stuff; they want to know every detail of how pictures were made, as if the tech stuff is either the secret or the point. (Not.) Me, I like to look at pictures. The Moment It Clicks splits the difference; call it a guided tour of a thirty-year career in photography and you're not far off. Hardcore techies won't find every nut and bolt. But there's more than nuts and bolts to living a life as a top-dawg pj—and a whole lot more to the pictures, really.
Is there anybody out there who wouldn't a) learn something from, and b) enjoy the hell out of this book? I'm not seeing it.
Anybody read it? I'd love to hear what you think.
I remember so many of these pictures.
_______________________
Mike (Thanks to Jason)
Featured Comment by Gerry Morgan: "The day this book arrived, I started dipping into it late at night, always planning to just read another couple of pages and then put it down. I finally got to bed at 2 a.m. having read it from cover to cover but in completely chaotic order. Since then, I've dipped into it so often that I've effectively read it through at least once again. It strikes a wonderful balance between being an instructional manual, a collection of photos, and a great read. I started watching the YouTube video but turned it off after ten minutes because it was all taken from the book. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I like being able to access this type of material randomly and the book is perfect for that."
Featured Comment by Stan Banos: "Interesting to see how he managed to integrate his commercial assignments with his personal interests, relate how he took time off to shoot the 9/11 portraits and then have to reestablish his commercial cred—only to have someone ask if he shot any 'personal work.' "
Featured Comment by Scott Jones: "Even my wife who is not a photographer read this book almost cover to cover. She loved the stories and distinctions and creativity displayed. Great read...."
Featured Comment by Stephen: "One of the best books (of any kind) I've read in a while. It's also probably the only book I've ever read that's really inspired me in my photography, especially to pick up and do some personal projects. I was wondering if or when it'd come up on TOP...."
Today, May 15th, is the 50th anniversary of the day Robert Frank's The Americans was first published by Robert Delpire in Paris. That was 1958. Today we realize that The Americans has more in common with beat poetry and club jazz than it has with many other kinds of photography; it's one of the high water marks of 1950s culture. And throughout an era when photographers communicated with each other and with their audiences mainly through the vehicle of published books, The Americans has had only a handful of competitors (Walker Evans' American Photographs, Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Decisive Moment, a few others) for the title of the most important single photography book ever published. For thirty years after its publication it was deeply influential. And although photography has moved on now, the echoes of its impact reverberate still.
In honor of the anniversary, today also marks the publication of the the finest reprint of the book ever made. The originals are "unobtanium," so reprints are all that are available to photographers and enthusiasts. Over the years there have been many, in many countries and languages; some pretty good, some not so good; some with Robert Frank's input, some without—most recently from Scalo, eight years ago. Mine is the 1986 Pantheon reprint, 22 years old now, which up till now I would have said was one of the most desirable of the affordable versions.
Gerhard Steidl has lately become arguably the world's most important producer of photographic books. In recent years Steidl has undertaken what it calls The Robert Frank Project: "...an ambitious long term publishing programme which encompasses Robert Frank’s complete oeuvre—reprints of his classic books, reprints of some less well known small books, the publication of previously unseen projects, newly conceived bookworks…in a scheme and to a standard that the artist himself has overseen."
Today's release of the deluxe reprint of The Americans is the culmination of Steidl's Robert Frank Project.
Robert Frank at Steidl in Göttingen
The new reprint is in some ways more desirable than the virtually unobtainable (and extremely expensive) first French or first American editions, at least as far as content is concerned. Frank journeyed to Göttingen with the 83 original prints, which were carefully re-scanned to create the finest modern tri-tone reproductions. During the process, he reportedly rethought the cropping of all but a small number of the pictures. The new edition also restores the small size of the original book—those accustomed to modern photo books will be surprised at how small this book is—and does away with the page numbers and the odd little triptych Frank had added to some editions as a visual coda. Two pictures are reproduced from different negatives entirely, slight variations of the originals.
A major touring exhibition will open at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in January, 2009. It will later travel to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The Americans is photography's "Kind of Blue." And like that evergreen Miles Davis masterpiece, it deserves a place in any collection. For a while, at least, there won't be any question as to which version to buy: for photographers and book collectors now and for some time to come, the Steidl reprint will doubtless be the edition of this book to have and enjoy.
_______________________
Mike
ADDENDUM: Our friend dyathink sent me a link to this article at telegraph.co.uk, with its fascinating account of Frank's perilous encounter with the malevolent Lieutenant Brown of the Arkansas State Police. It really got me to thinking—is it possible that Lt. Brown and other characters like him might have had some real influence on the final form of the book Robert Frank made? After all, when you choose 83 pictures out of 28,000 shots, it's possible to tell any number of stories, in any number of ways. And of course, when Frank had this "most humiliating" experience, the all-important edit was still to come.
(Robert Frank's arrest report and letter to Walker Evans about his arrest at PhotoPermit.org. Thanks to Gabriele Harhoff for the links.)
There's a point about photographic books (now often called "photobooks" thanks to several recent influential texts) I thought I should clarify. Every now and then it gets mentioned here, by me or Geoff Wittig or someone else, that such-and-such an out-of-print monograph (a monograph is a book of pictures by one photographer—usually a coherent book, sequenced deliberately) now costs $300, or $950, or $2,000, or whatever. Reading that, many people automatically assume that what's being discussed, even touted, is the investment value of the book.
If you want to buy photobooks as an investment game, I have nothing against that. Many people enjoy collecting things, and are hoping that the value of the things they collect will increase as time passes. I have no objection.
However, personally, I buy photobooks for their content, or their significance. Or for how pretty they are, or for how much I want to get to know the pictures. Yes, I definitely appreciate all the corporeal "bookmaking" aspects of the book-as-object—the quality of the paper and binding, the design, and especially the quality of the reproductions. (I favor reproductions that try to be true to the photographer's actual prints. Sometimes I don't know what that is, because I've never seen original prints. But with a surprising number of more established photographers—say, anyone who was a "name" before 1990 or so—I've seen originals.)
I "read" photobooks. Not always as strictly as I defined in this 2007 TOP essay, but essentially so. I do it all the time. Every day, probably. My book collection is no precious conceit; it's a working library that I use as a resource for self-education and enjoyment.
I generally keep all the photobooks I buy, even when I shouldn't. (This is kind of funny: recently I resolved to clean out my library and sell off all the titles I don't really want, to free up shelf space and make my collection leaner. So what became of that? I ended up buying a dozen new books over a six-month period that I suddenly just "had to have," and, after much agonizing, came up with a whopping four older ones that I decided I could live without! And then I decided, since there were only four, that I might as well keep them. That's the mindset of the collector, as collectors who read this will readily recognize.)
Anyway, when I talk about a certain older title rising in value, here's what I almost always mean: Good thing I already own it, because I couldn't afford to buy it now.
(Let's not talk about the opposite, which amounts to, "I could have bought it a few years ago, but I missed my chance.")
The market value of the most valuable book I own is about $2,500. The most cash I've ever paid for a book is—I think—no more than $150, for a book pictured in this post, although that was back when I had more money to toss around in devil-may- care fashion. I have plenty of books that are not replaceable now for less than $200, or $400, or even $1,000. I mentioned the other day that I own Helen Levitt's Crosstown, a particularly beautiful retrospective published in 2001 by Powerhouse. I've been trying to remember, and I think, although I'm not certain, that I paid $50 for it—that's on the high side for me; not very many of the books I buy are that expensive. Nowadays, according to Geoff, it goes for $950 (abebooks.com lists one for more than $1,800). But am I patting myself on the back for having made a good investment? Not at all. It's not cash on the shelf to me. It's not liquid. I'm never going to be able to bring myself to part with it, and I know that. I'm simply relieved that I already have it, because it's completely out of reach now.
My son should be happy it's worth $950. Maybe it'll be worth even more when he inherits it. But me, I'm just glad I don't have to come across references to it and think, damn, there's another one that got away.
I have books of all sorts in my collection. I even have one ex-library copy (I usually avoid ex-lib copies like the taint)—it's a "rescue" copy of Cartier-Bresson's book about Russia. It amused me because the library that jettisoned it put a big stamp on the title page that says "OUT OF DATE—CONTENTS NO LONGER RELEVANT." Ha! Says them. I like having it in my collection just to prove the stamper wrong. Value? Maybe $6? Essentially, nothing.
But I don't value books based on what they're worth. I buy remainders and used books, and I have flea-market finds sitting next to valuable association copies on my shelves. I'm sure I have some "valuable" books I think are third-rate. In fact, come to think of it, I really have no idea what some of my books are worth at all. I'm sure the "worth" of some of my treasures would disappoint me, just as the value of some of my "junk" would amaze me.
Sometimes you really do have options. The copy of Danny Lyons' The Bikeriders pictured above is the 1997 Twin Palms reprint, in hardcover. I paid $150 for that one, because I knew I could never afford a copy of the 1968 first and I was anxious about missing a shot at the reprint. My copy is now worth…about what I paid for it, give or take. But you can still—today—buy a perfectly good softcover from Chronicle Books
And that's just it—you never know. The rule for collecting books, therefore, is the same as for collecting photographs themselves: Buy what you like. Consider its market value of course; that's part of the game. You certainly have to consider value when the value is also the price. But if you don't enjoy owning something for its own sake, for the purposes of visiting it from time to time, learning from it, enjoying it, what's the point?
____________________________
Mike
Featured Comment by Roy: "I've frequently sought out books after reading about them here—not for profit but simply because I know our tastes are similar. I've yet to be disappointed with any one of them. I'm particularly gladdened to see The Unforeseen Wilderness accompany this article. I bought a copy a while ago and it's a magical little book. My library of 'photobooks' accumulated over nearly forty years is a continual source of unalloyed pleasure."
