colour photographer book suggestionss?

Helen B · Apr 23, 2006

A lot of the people I would have mentioned have already been mentioned, mainly by Tim, so I'll just add John Ganis and suggest Blind Spot as a source for the type of colour landscape you are interested in.

Best,
Helen
PS I guess that much of the stuff I have on the web might be classified as pretty postcards. And the rest... well, as someone said "If we wanted pictures like yours we could have got them from a seed catalogue".

game · Apr 23, 2006

thanks helen,
Great link to a probably very nice magazine. Only shipment to europe will be 40 dollar, too much...
Game

roteague · Apr 23, 2006

game said:
I can't keep thinking of all these postcard images but as the musak of photography. I DON'T LIKE IT. To me I can understand people that say WOW, but to me it's empty.

Perhaps you just don't understand it. It involves having a love of the nature world around us, not of the image itself. Meyorowitz's work is static, showing no life.

c6h6o3 · Apr 23, 2006

game said:
I was hoping some of you guys can provide me with some suggestions of photographers that I could/should check out.

My favorite book of color photography is the monumental River of Colour: The India of Raghubir Singh. Like the work of his artistic mentor, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Singh's work is so seminal that it defies categorization. It is page after page of vibrant compositions, perfectly executed. The color is never gratuitous but always is an integral part of each masterpiece of composition. Whether you most fancy landscape photography, photojournalism, street work or even abstract expressionist photography you're certain to see at least one photograph in this book which will take your breath away.

Singh worked exclusively with a hand held 35mm camera and Kodachrome 25 film yet neither Ansel Adams nor Edward Weston ever surpassed his compositional eye with their tripod mounted 8 x 10s.

I found my copy, a paper bound one, in a cutout bin at Border's priced, as I recall, at $8.00. This is undoubtedly the best book bargain I've ever run into. As the Bard of Baltimore said: "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public". -- H.L. Mencken

Mike Lopez · Apr 23, 2006

roteague said:
Perhaps you just don't understand it. It involves having a love of the nature world around us, not of the image itself. Meyorowitz's work is static, showing no life.

It is not the image itself? I don't see that written on photography sites very often. Could you expand on this philosophy? When I make a photograph, everything on the ground glass is it. The success or failure of the picture is determined by "the image itself." The image is what people will see, not the emotion I carry with me behind the camera. The image (on the ground glass and on the print) is everything! You've mentioned Ken Duncan and I do recall flipping through one of his books once and reading about how his pictures are a testament to "creation," but that does nothing to increase the merit of his pictures. The phrase "calendar art" has been brought up several times on this thread, and I would note that one sometimes sees descriptions of pictures, the stories behind them, the struggle to get to the location before dawn, etc., in calendar presentations.

Meyerowitz's work is static and shows no life? I'd invite you to look again.

SuzanneR · Apr 23, 2006

roteague said:
Perhaps you just don't understand it. It involves having a love of the nature world around us, not of the image itself. Meyorowitz's work is static, showing no life.

Well, if it's not about the image, then why make the photograph?

roteague · Apr 23, 2006

Suzanne Revy said:
Well, if it's not about the image, then why make the photograph?

The love of the natural world - you will find out many landscape photographers have this as their driving force. The image expresses that love. When, I say "image", I mean that some photographers are more in love with their physical creation than what the image represents.

Mike Lopez · Apr 23, 2006

roteague said:
The love of the natural world - you will find out many landscape photographers have this as their driving force. The image expresses that love. When, I say "image", I mean that some photographers are more in love with their physical creation than what the image represents.

Huh? Could you clarify?

mejiro · Apr 23, 2006

roteague said:
The love of the natural world - you will find out many landscape photographers have this as their driving force. The image expresses that love.

I see this more in the work of photographers like Meyerowitz than in the work of, say, Jack Dyckinga. The love of the calendar artists seems very cold to me.

roteague · Apr 23, 2006

mejiro said:
I see this more in the work of photographers like Meyerowitz than in the work of, say, Jack Dyckinga. The love of the calendar artists seems very cold to me.

Then you are blind. Jack Dykinga has showed his love of the natural world by his actions; getting a national park declared in Mexico, for one thing. Meyerowitz doesn't do anything that doesn't line his pocket.

Mike Lopez · Apr 23, 2006

roteague said:
Then you are blind. Jack Dykinga has showed his love of the natural world by his actions; getting a national park declared in Mexico, for one thing. Meyerowitz doesn't do anything that doesn't line his pocket.

Wow. Speaking for myself, I love my pictures for what they are. I guess I'm still working on trying to love them for whatever else it is they are supposed to represent. Perhaps they represent my place in the world at this moment in time. I don't know. I don't really think about it, either. But I certainly don't pass judgment on others' work I don't understand by dismissing it and the photographer with statements like the ones you've made here.

SuzanneR · Apr 23, 2006

Well, I'd agree that I don't get an overwhelming sense of a love of the natural world from Meyrewitz, but he sure loves photography. I find his work deeply felt, and quite beautiful. And if he makes money on his photography, well... fine with me! I'd like to make more with mine!

If Jack Dykinga got a National Park declared in Mexico, that's great. I still find his images lacking in emotional content, but I'm sure he loves the natural world. His emotional connection to that world seems lacking in his photographs.

When I have a visceral reaction.. I dislike someone's work... I find it more productive to allow myself to really LOOK at it.

Great list of photographers from Tim, btw! An interesting thread...

game · Apr 23, 2006

to begin with,
The fact that joel is not opening a wildlife resort is totally irrelevant.

roteaque...
lets just say that you and I are being photographers in complete different ways. I don't feel like argueing with you, or your co-nature-photographers cause that would be quitte like explaining my love for modern jazz to a pop music fan. And that is in no way intented as snobby or highharted.

Meyerowitz is subtle. And if you'd read some stuff about him you'd know that he is full of love for live. Only it is somewhat shortsighted, or at least narrow, to assume that beauty is only to be found in postcard-nature. People and the concrete buildings they make are as much nature as the waterfall with an old tree standing next to it that you like.

It's is no use trying to convince me of jan dykinga and fellow photographers. It does not work for me just like joel does not work for you.

Bill Mitchell · Apr 24, 2006

The Granddaddy of great color photography books is Ernst Hass' "The Creation." It has been in continuous print for many years, and thus used ones are quite inexpensive.

lee · Apr 24, 2006

I have a copy of this book Bill that I bought at an estate sale last year. Maybe $3.00

lee\c

tim atherton · Apr 24, 2006

"Meyerowitz doesn't do anything that doesn't line his pocket."

well- he risked his health and his freedom documenting the aftermath of the WTC for many weeks after 9/11 because of the absolute importance he saw in the work. He also spent a couple of hundred thousand or so of his own dollars on it before anyone else came up with anything to help out

And produced some stunning work in the process that will be long remembered

tim atherton · Apr 24, 2006

the difference between lets call it the Dykinga approach to colour and the Eggleston approach is an absolutely fundamental one.

Although it is not quite as simple as this, the first essentially sees colour as a cosmetic element of the overall graphic composition of the photograph - it adorns and embellishes (you can see this on many what have been called "calendar" type shots - take away the colour and they work reasonably well in B&W) - that is the photographer basically ensures they "colour inside the lines" - the colour is contained and dominated by line. Such scenes are also often relatively easily described in words

In the second approach, colour is itself the essence of the form, it is the substance of the photograph, not just the surface. The essence of an Eggleston or a Shore photograph isn't so easily reduced to description - in contrast with the first approach, the colour takes over where the words run out. It goes far beyond simply being coloured chiaroscuro

You could sum it up by saying the former use colours whereas the latter uses colour

Terrick E. Meakin · May 22, 2006

I agree with about 50% of those mentioned but still regard "Shinzo Maeda" in the top three where colour is concerned, his technique and attention to detail are superb and his pictures just wonderful.

PhotoPhred · Jun 3, 2006

I'd add Cole Weston to the list of color photographers whose work is worth the time.

Fred

MurrayMinchin · Jun 4, 2006

Fred! Are your fingers blistered from all that typing? Are you okay? Really...I want to know

Murray

colour photographer book suggestionss?

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