You're on a desert island and have (up to) 5 photo books...

[macfred]

Not so easy to decide ...

Sally Mann Immediate Family
Eugène Atget Paris
Fred Herzog Modern Color
Emmet Gowin Photographs
Richard Avedon In the American West

 

[Alex Benjamin]

fawcking boring

I find every single photo in there absolutely fascinating. I love the way the pacing of the book is thought out. I loved seeing the exhibit at the Met a few years back.

Each photo is jazz, book is like a great jazz album - and yeah, I know, some people think jazz is boring, but that doesn't make jazz boring.

 

[Pioneer]

Vivian Maier
Eugene Atget/MOMA
Dorothea Lange
On the Art of Fixing a Shadow
Decisive Moment

Several copies of The American to wipe my bum...

 

[CMoore]

I find every single photo in there absolutely fascinating. I love the way the pacing of the book is thought out. I loved seeing the exhibit at the Met a few years back.

Each photo is jazz, book is like a great jazz album - and yeah, I know, some people think jazz is boring, but that doesn't make jazz boring.

Everybody has an opinion, of course.
I do not like the book as much as yourself, but i like it WAY More than those that think it is boring.

I wonder what book they have seen.
I assume the reissue of the book is what MOST have seen.?
That book is a bit small and the printing is not the best IMHO.

It would be interesting, not just here but ALL discussions like this, if we could see a study of the demographics of the people that comment on a certain book or pictures

Anyway...................what i like most about these types of threads is looking up photographers that i do not know, or do not know very well.
Sometimes you find some books that you REALLY Like A Lot.

 

[doughowk]

If I was on a desert island, probably due to wanting to avoid humans. So would not include Avedon, Salgado, Mary Ellen Mark, etc..
Would want books of inspiration befitting my circumstance:
Michael Kenna - Forms of Japan
Elliot Porter - Iceland
Clyde Butcher - Seeing in the Light
Brett Weston - A Personal Selection
George Tice - Seacoast Maine

 

[Pieter12]

Everybody has an opinion, of course.
I do not like the book as much as yourself, but i like it WAY More than those that think it is boring.

I wonder what book they have seen.
I assume the reissue of the book is what MOST have seen.?
That book is a bit small and the printing is not the best IMHO.

It would be interesting, not just here but ALL discussions like this, if we could see a study of the demographics of the people that comment on a certain book or pictures

Anyway...................what i like most about these types of threads is looking up photographers that i do not know, or do not know very well.
Sometimes you find some books that you REALLY Like A Lot.

I have seen the original prints and the Steidl reissue of the book. Both are stunning. There is also a more comprehensive volume called "Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans: Expanded Edition." I am surprised no-one has mentioned Walker Evans' "American Photographs." Or "Irving Penn: Centennial."

 

[Alex Benjamin]

I have seen the original prints and the Steidl reissue of the book. Both are stunning. There is also a more comprehensive volume called "Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans: Expanded Edition." I am surprised no-one has mentioned Walker Evans' "American Photographs." Or "Irving Penn: Centennial."

I thought about American Photographs. I admire Evans immensely. But it's not a desert island book for me, not something I would go back to over and over again.

Same goes with a few admired photographers, such as Winogrand, Minor White, Moriyama, Danny Lyon and others. Enjoy their work greatly, but not such as I would spend the rest of my life with it. Couldn't say why, though.

 

[Helios 1984]

I don't have that many photograph books nor have I leafed through many but I would bring my copy of Karsh A Sixty-Year Retrospective

 

[removed account4]

National portrait gallery portraits
Bukowski ham on rye ( latest hand printed version )
Penn Visions in a small room
Nadar

 

[Arthurwg]

Nadar not too shabby.