How many photographic books do you own?

[RalphLambrecht]

Jeez - my 12 year old son reliably informs me I have 731 on my shelves. A large chunk of them came from my father and grandfather quite a few are early 20th century/late 19th century.

I'm jealous!

 

[jovo]

John

... Apparently, people still consider books to be a valuable investment and are proud of their collections. This is a good thing!

As photographic book publishing becomes better and better, while not the same thing of course, really good monographs are getting close to the quality of prints themselves. I can't imagine being interested, let alone passionate, about photographs, and not owning really well made monographs if not actual prints. I once compared some actual Mark Citret prints to the same images in his book Along the Way, and was amazed at the similarity.

 

[Barry S]

As photographic book publishing becomes better and better, while not the same thing of course, really good monographs are getting close to the quality of prints themselves. I can't imagine being interested, let alone passionate, about photographs, and not owning really well made monographs if not actual prints. I once compared some actual Mark Citret prints to the same images in his book Along the Way, and was amazed at the similarity.

I've seen a number of books with images that are superior to the actual prints. I wish I owned a set of Camera Work with all those tipped-in photogravures--the books were the actual prints.

 

[Mahler_one]

I guess the best answer for me would be, "Too many"!

Seriously....about 50.

 

[paulie]

May I ask why no books on photography?

i move around a lot in my life and books are heavy, infact ive never even looked in a photography book

 

[RalphLambrecht]

i move around a lot in my life and books are heavy, infact ive never even looked in a photography book

Now, that's what I call self-confidence!

 

[japanesecamerasinfo]

you have many photographics that you all reads what is the best book /favourite books about the photography ?

 

[benjiboy]

Now, that's what I call self-confidence!

I'd call it ignorance Ralph, I'm very suspicious of people who claim never to have read books.

 

[Steve Smith]

I'd call it ignorance Ralph, I'm very suspicious of people who claim never to have read books.

Are they like the people who claim never to watch soap operas on TV but seem to know the current story?


Steve.

 

[paulie]

books are expensive , but i do have the ultimate book, my sony laptop.
+ i dont like to be influenced by others.

i make my own cameras and i didnt need a book to tell me how to do it either

 

[perkeleellinen]

I tend to sell off most of my photo books every few years and start again. Like paulie, above, I'm fairly transient and having loads of books is a pain when moving. In the past I've sold off my photos books before an upheaval and then once re-settled I start buying new ones.

I don't own any technique books - just monographs.

Since photo magazines have become complete dross with their advertorials and how-to-copy-someone-else's-vision-in-ten-simple-photoshop-steps 'technique' articles, I've found photo books to be the best inspiration.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

...i dont like to be influenced by others...

If I wouldn't have been influenced by others (parents, peers, teachers), I would know nothing.
I'm glad they influenced me. Wouldn't it be a tough life if every generation had to invent the wheel again. Books are the best way to collect the combined knowledge of current and past generations.

 

[paulie]

if you have to reinvent the wheel , at least you will know how to actually make one, rather than just believing you can from just reading a book

 

[Tom Kershaw]

I just voted less than 100 if that includes photo (art) books as well as technical manuals.

Tom

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Ok- I went through and did a casual inventory- not counting coffee-table books that aren't specifically photography related, I've got slightly more than 150 photo related titles, and another 200+ photography periodicals that I've deemed worth keeping. The periodicals are probably more than 300 but I can't be bothered to count.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Great! Thanks for counting, and thanks for not including periodicals. We were only after books. It's amazing how many accumulate over the years. I have another two on order right now.

 

[perkeleellinen]

I've got another two on the way:

http://www.japanexposures.com/books/product_info.php?products_id=10345
http://www.steidlville.com/books/381-European-Fields-The-Landscape-of-Lower-League-Football.html

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Great! Thanks for counting, and thanks for not including periodicals. We were only after books. It's amazing how many accumulate over the years. I have another two on order right now.

Well, some of the periodicals are worthy of considering in their own right - there's a magazine that used to be sold here in the US - I don't know if it is still published or not, but I haven't been able to find it for quite a while. It was called Photographers International, and it was a joint project of a publisher in Taipei, and a French government arts agency. The printing was absolutely first-rate, on super-heavy paper stock, must have been at least quad-tone. They had only about eight pages of ads in the entire magazine - four at the front, four at the back, and the back cover. And this in a 125 +/- page magazine. I've got about twenty issues of the magazine, and I keep looking for more on e-bay periodically but haven't found any. If anyone reading this knows the magazine and its fate, or even better has back issues they'd be willing to part with, let me know.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Just added a few more books to the collection - the exhibition catalogs for "TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the photograph as art" and "Framing the West: The survey photographs of Timothy O'Sullivan", Reuven Afanador's latest monograph "1000 Besos", and a hard cover copy of the Ansel Adams "Manzanar" book he did of the Japanese internees at the Manzanar relocation camp. I know I will have to move house some time, and I'm dreading the day that happens because I'm quite confident that everything else in the house combined weighs less than my library. And I'm outgrowing the library. Literally. I've now got books stacked on top of each other, and in a few areas where I've got softcover pulp novels, they're two deep on the shelves. I've got over 1700 now, just in the library room. I'm getting ready to purge the office shelves of old computer books for software versions that are obsolete so I can move some of them out of the library and into the office.

 

[Ian Grant]

Another 15 or more since the thread started

Ian

 

[Lanline]

67 books that I can find without too much work.

 

[resummerfield]

I just checked, and I have 238 in my "catalog", and another half-dozen or so not yet cataloged. And that does NOT include those "throw-away" how-to books on anything digital.

 

[benjiboy]

Just to digress for a moment, I came home yesterday to find my wife was hopping mad she was so angry smoke was coming out of her ears, I asked her what was wrong, and apparently the repair man who had come to fix our washing machine while I was out when he saw the vast amount of books in our house said to her "your husband must be a big reader" to which she replied "A lot of the books are mine, I know I,m a woman but I can ******* read as well, believe it or not"

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I don't have that many, maybe 30 or 40; most of them are of works of other photographers. I use Tim Rudman's toning book quite a bit, but that's the only one that I apply practically to my own work. The rest is mostly for recreation.
I don't have 'Way Beyond Monochrome' either, but just might add it if finances allow once it's finally released by the new publisher.
One of my favorite books is the book about William Post by Christian Peterson (assistant curator of photography at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts). It's very well written, and interesting to read.

 

[BradS]

I have about 40 photo books not counting duplicates. These are about half picture books and about half technical.