Photo Books - What must I have in my collection?

Garry Winogrand- Figments from the Real World

One of my favs: Redemption by Floria Sigismondi. Why I like it, I honestly don't know.

Cheers,
Chris

One of my favorites is A Personal Selection By Brett Weston.

The one must-have possesion is... a library card.

You MUST have iT!

The mother of all instructional photography books:

Feininger on Photography
by
Andreas Feininger

Ziff-Davis Publishing Co.
1949

Sorry. I just couldn't stop. These books have taken my breath away, again and again.
Enjoy. John Powers

Arentz, Dick; British Isles, Nazraeli Press2002
Four Corners Country; Univ of AZ Press, 1986
The Grand Tour; Nazraeli Press, signed 2001
John Blakemore’s B&W Photography Workshop
John Blakemore Stilled Gaze
Portrait of Myself, Bourke-White, Margaret, Simon & Schuster, 1963
Butler, Linda Yangtze Remembered, The River Beneath The Lake, Stanford Press, 2004
Conner, Lois; China, The Photographs of Lois Conner, Callaway, 2000
Tillman Crane, Structure, Custom and Limited Editions, 2000
Evans, Frederick H., Aperture 1973
Andreas Feininger, Andreas Feininger
Lee Friedlander Stems
Fields of Peace, A Pennsylvania German Album, George Tice, David R. Godine Pub, 1998
Kenro Izu Still Life
Kenro Izu Blue
Lartigue, Jacques-Henri Album of a Century, 2003
Lartigue, Jacques-Henri Boyhood Photos of
Roman Lorance, Two Hearted Oak,
Ray K. Metzker Landscapes, CMA exhibit, Evan H. Turner, Aperture 2003
Andrea Modica, Real Indians, Melcher Media, 2003
New England Days, Paul Caponigro, David Godine, Publisher, 2002
W. Eugene Smith; Aperture; 1969
Michael A. Smith Tuscany, Wandering the Back Roads Vol 2; Michael A. Smith; Lodmia Press;
Michael A. Smith A Visual Journey, Michael A. Smith, Lodima Press, 1992
Tuscany, Wandering the Back Roads Vol 2; Michael A. Smith; Lodmia Press; 2004
Szarkowski, John
The Work of Atget vol 1-4
City Seen, A, George Gund Foundation
Looking at Photographs, 100 pics MOMA 1973
Mirrors and Windows, American Photography since 1960, Museum of Modern Art,
Mr. Bristol’s Barn
Photographs, Bullfinch, 2005
Brett Weston, Voyage of the Eye, Beaumont Newhall, Aperture, 1975
Weston, Edward, My Camera on Point Lobos; DA CAPO Press, 1968
Weston, Edward & Mather, Margrethe, A Passionate Collaboration, BG Warren, Santa
Weston, Weston, A Photographer’s Love of Life, Dayton Art Institute, 2004
Weston’s Weston: California and the West; Quinn & Stebbins;Bostom MOFA, Bulfinch,
Wilder Shore; Baer, Morley; Yolla Bolly Press, 1984

wfe said:

I agree with Michale Kenna's "Japan". The best book that I own is a handmade book with 24 original photographs in it by a photographer that I studied with at a workshop in Maine. The photography is beautiful and the book itself being a work of art compliments it niclely. The photographer is Cig Harvey Dead Link Removed. I love her work and she is an amazing person.

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Having looked at Cig Harveys work I must say i am very impressed, her handmade book sounds wonderful, now if i had the money i would love to own a copy. I have just made my own handmade photographic book and it was great fun, although challenging!

I just wanted to add that one book I have been told to get is 'let us now praise famous men' by Walker Evans as it is supposed to be superb, does anyone have a copy and could rate this book, thanks.

I highly recommend "The Heart of Prague"available at photo eye.

I don't have an extensive collection, but what I do have includes:

Sally Mann: Immediate Family, At Twelve, Deep South, Still Time
Keith Carter: Blue Man, Mojo, Heaven of Animals, From Uncertain to Blue, Bones, Twenty Five Years,
Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague
Michael Kenna: Retrospective Two
Anne Brigmann

And a few others

david b said:

Like many of you, I am sure, I collect photography books. I buy at least one a month.

So, I am wondering what book must I have? It doens't matter if it's a landscape book, a portrait book, color or black and white.

Also, where do you buy your books from?

Thanks.

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I'm not sure how your taste in photogrphers run but PM me for a list of out of print collectibles that I have for sale.

Don Bryant

I am sure this will not be taken seriuously, but I mean it to be. The Joy of Photography series put out by Kodak. It is a wonderful introduction to photography and "how to" book combined. The material contained within it's pages took me the best part of a lifetime to learn, and there it is all summed up in one glossy publication. If I had had the "Joy of Photography when I began my career, my journey to learn would have contained far fewer bumps. Kodak also used to publish a series of 5x8 or so booklets called "How to". They covered everything from negative contrast masks, to nearly screen door hooks. I still have most of these publications, and refer to them regularly.

I also recommend Sally Mann's Immediate Family, Still Time, & At Twelve. Irreplicable (is that even a word?) and amazing. My professor Vaughn Sills' One Family is really fine, documents a rural family for 15+ years. Josef Sudek's work is lovely; I believe there is a book of his pigment prints. I adore Eudora Welty Photographs; she's not anly a fabulous writer but a wonderful photographer. Some great portraits. Adam Fuss's self-titled photogram book is stunning (but not the same as seeing the prints full-size). His book My Ghost is also quite moving. Also Bill Burke's I want to take picture - a polaroid held together with duct tape can do astounding things.

Mentioned once before in this thread, Weston's "Daybooks" while not really a "photo" book in the classic sense, are an incredible gift from one of the greatest photographers in history.

"Galen Rowell's Inner Game of Outdoor Photography" By Galen Rowell
"Desert: The Mojave and Death Valley" By Jack W. Dykinga
"Landscape Within" By David Ward
"Large Format Nature Photography" By Jack W. Dykinga
"Light and the Art of Landscape Photography" By Joe Cornish
"Photographing the Landscape: The Art of Seeing" By John Fielder
"The Great Southland" By Ken Duncan

Wright Morris, "The Inhabitants" and "The Home Place."

Wow! I have a big photo book collection and I've never heard of so many of those mentioned! I'll have to make some notes and go browsing.

Some of my personal favorites are Ralph Gibson's "Deus ex Machina", Sally Mann's "Deep South", "What Remains" and "Motherland", Garry Winogrand's "Winogrand 1964", William Eggleston's "Los Alamos", Michael Kenna's "Retrospective", "Retrospective 2" and "Japan" and numerous books by or about Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Ralph Eugene Meatyard, Jeanloupe Sieff, Diane Arbus...and the list goes on.

Michael Langford "35 mm Handbook"
There are some awesome sounding books in this list, I suspect I may be adding another book case to the collection soon. (currently 210 feet of shelf space)

If you like Harry Callahan,a new publication titled: Harry Callahan: The Photographer at Work by Briit Salvesen and John Szarkowski has just been released. It will be a must have for me since I am a huge Callahan fan.

"Requiem by the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina" edited by Horst Fass and Tim Page

"Full Moon" by Michael Light, collected images from the Apollo missions

"On This Earth" by Nick Brandt

and any thing by Walker Evans

And just a quick moan. Will publishers please stop printing images across two pages, there isn't meant to be a line down the centre of each image. National Geographic seem to be particularly guilty of this, especially in two inch thick books, making it almost impossible to see the whole image with out damaging the spine

just a few (!) great ones:

'Manufactured Landscapes' by Edward Burtynsky
'A Twenty Year Retrospective' by Michael Kenna
'Frozen History' by Josef Hoflehner
'Workers' by Sebastiao Salgado

plus upcoming monographs:
'Yemen' by Josef Hoflehner
'Hokkaido' by Michael Kenna

I think you need to determine what the purpose of your photography book collection is. Is it to have a survey selection from the history of photography or is it simply a collection of photography that you love, both are equaly good, just different.

There are so many photography books being published that it is difficult to say what is a "must have". We can only give recommendations on books that are important to us personally, or have some sort of historical importance.

In a past Photo-Eye Booklist there is an interview with John Szarkowski and he gives his "Top Ten" of photo-books. That is a good place to start.

Here are some that mean a lot to me at the moment:
--Lee Friedlander's retrospective book that was published along with the exhibition at MOMA last summer.
--Michael A. Smith: A Visual Journey and The Students of Deep Springs College
--Paula Chamlee's: High Plains Farm and Madonnina
--Walker Evans: American Photographs and Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
--Robert Adams: L.A. Spring, Pine Valley, and California: Views of the Los Angeles Basin 1978-1983.
--Louis Baltz: The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, CA
--George Tice: Patterson
--Carlton Watkins: The Art of Perception
--John Szarkowski: Looking at Photographs
--Edward Weston: Life Work (for the reproductions and Dody's essay), California and the West (not the Weston's Westons, but the original for Charis' writing) and the Day Books
--Ansel Adams at 100

This list, of course, could go on and on, but these are some right off the top of my head.

A short, incomplete inventory of my library -
Ruth Bernhard: Eternal Body
F Holland Day: Suffering The Ideal
Reuven Afanador: Torero
Reuven Afanador: Sombra
Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition: Photographs and Mannerist Prints
Edward Steichen: The Family Of Man (I realize this is sort of a guilty pleasure to admit to owning it)
John Dugdale: Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfall
Duane Michals: Eros & Thanatos

I don't yet have, but want to get the Tseng Kwong Chi book, Ambiguous Ambassador.

These are the ones I enjoy the most I think:

Emmit Gowin's "Photographs" - just an amazing book
Caponigro's "Wise Silence"
Weston "Life Work"
Sommer "Photography, Drawing, Collage" and "All Children are Ambassadors"
Meatyard - "Family Album of Lucybelle Crater" and "Ralph Eugene Meatyard"
Strand - "Southwest"
Harry Callahan "Callahan"

I've got a bunch more, but these are the ones I look at the most I think.

Best,

Will

I just added Kenro Izu's "Passage to Angkor" to my collection. Talk about a beautifully printed book of beautiful images of Angkor. Another benefit of the book is that a percentage of the proceeds goes to supporting a childrens' hospital in Cambodia, which is a desperately needed facility in that strikingly poor nation.
If I'm not mistaken he shot a lot of those with a 12x20.

The book I'd like to recommend is M.I.L.K Humanity book (the hardcover one). It's a collection of photographs from all over the world portraying human life from fragile birth till our last days. This book really took my breath away. This is a great example of the old saying "some pictures are worth thousand words"
I discovered it at the library, but can’t find it in the bookstores. Just curious, did any Apuggers read it?