Essential books for a photo library part I
As we discussed in another article, it is a good idea not to spend too much money on photographic gear, if you want to advance your photography. Gear will not help you in your photography more than an expensive pen would help someone become a better writer.
One of the greatest possible investments would be in books. This is something that will actually help you in your path. The best way to start is by collecting actual photography-related books, mostly image books, but even biographies or essays. Being exposed to great images is very helpful as it trains your eye to appreciate a good scene/frame when it presents itself in front of you and be able to capture it yourself. It is the fastest way to train yourself in visual composition.
Photo books are probably the best means, as it suggests that the creator and their images have passed through an extra filter (the editor, etc.) in order for the book to be created. So, especially to the untrained eye, photo books are a real treasure.
I tried to compile a list to help you create your own photo book collection and make a great library for yourself. So the books I consider essential to my collection, with NO specific order of preference are:
Magnum Contact Sheets
This exceptional book, published here in an accessibly priced paperback format, comes out just as the shift to digital photography threatens to render the contact sheet obsolete. It celebrates the contact sheet as a fascinating way of accompanying great photographers as they work towards, and capture, the most enduring images of our time. 139 contact sheets, representing 69 photographers, are featured, as well as zoom-in details, selected photographs, press cards, notebooks and spreads from contemporary publications, including Life magazine and Picture Post. Further insight is provided by texts written by the photographers themselves or by experts chosen by members’ estates. It includes many greats of photography, among them Henri Cartier- Bresson, Elliott Erwitt and Inge Morath, as well as Magnum’s latest generation, such as Jonas Bendiksen, Alessandra Sanguinetti and Alec Soth. These photographers cover over 70 years of history, from the D-Day landings by Robert Capa and the Paris riots of 1968 by Bruno Barbey to images of Che Guevara by René Burri, Malcolm X by Eve Arnold and classic New Yorkers by Bruce Gilden.
2. Michael Kenna: Images of the Seventh Day
A beautifully designed monograph surveying the works of the highly acclaimed contemporary photographer.
Kenna’s photographs captivate viewers through their silent drama and magnetism: rather than being accurate descriptions of a place, the photographer seems interested in capturing the invisible lines which enclose space, and in so doing arousing a viewer’s imagination and reverie. Michael Kenna is an artist for whom the subject is above all the opportunity for a tremendous but constant variation in his view of the world.
Michael Kenna was born in England in 1953 but has been living in the United States for thirty years. Of the many showings of his works that have been held in public venues and private galleries, mention should be made particularly of those in museums in France, Japan and the United States, the latest being in the French National Library, Paris, in 2009.
3. On Photography, by Susan Sontag
'The most original and illuminating study of the subject.' The New Yorker
Photographs are everywhere. From high art to family albums to legal evidence, they capture and document the world around us. And whether we use them to expose, reveal or remember, they hold an enduring power.
In this essential and revelatory volume, Susan Sontag confronts important questions surrounding the power dynamics between photographer and subject, the blurred boundary between lived events and recreated images, and the desires that lead us to record our lives.
'Complex and contradictory... one of America's greatest public intellectuals' Observer
'Susan Sontag offers enough food for thought to satisfy the most intellectual of appetites.' The Times
'A brilliant analysis of the profound changes photographic images have had in our way of looking at the world, and at ourselves, over the years.' Washington Post
3. Vivian Maier: Photographin
Discovered in 2007, nanny-cum-street photographer Vivian Maier (1926-2009) has since become a cult figure. This volume presents a first survey of her candid oeuvre: obsessive, sharp, playful, humorous, and uncompromising.
4. Fred Herzog: Modern Color
Fred Herzog is known for his unusual use of colour in the fifties and sixties, a time when art photography was almost exclusively associated with black and white imagery. The Canadian photographer worked almost exclusively with Kodachrome slide film for over 50 years, and only in the past decade has technology allowed him to make archival pigment prints that match the exceptional color and intensity of the Kodachrome slide. In this respect, his photographs can be seen as a pre-figuration of the New Color photographers of the seventies.This book will bring together over 230 images, many never before reproduced, and will feature essays by acclaimed authors David Campany and Hans-Michael Koetzle. Fred Herzog will be the most comprehensive publication on this important photographer to date.
5. The Suffering of Light: Thirty Years of Photographs by Alex Webb
Gathering some of Alex Webb’s most iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth, The Suffering of Light brings a fresh perspective to his extensive catalogue. Recognized as a pioneer of American colour photography, Webb has since the 1970s consistently created photographs characterized by intense colour and light. His work, with its richly layered and complex composition, touches on multiple genres, including street photography, photojournalism and fine art, but as Webb claims, ‘to me it all is photography. You have to go out and explore the world with a camera.’ Webb’s ability to distil gesture, colour and contrasting cultural tensions into single, beguiling frames results in evocative images that convey a sense of enigma, irony and humour. Featuring key works alongside previously unpublished photographs, The Suffering of Light is Webb’s first comprehensive monograph and provides the most thorough examination to date of this modern master’s prolific, thirty-year career.
6. All About Saul Leiter
‘A photographer’s gift to the viewer is sometimes beauty in the overlooked ordinary’
Saul Leiter
Photography lovers the world over are now embracing Saul Leiter, who has enjoyed a remarkable revival since fading into relative obscurity in the 1980s. This collection reveals the secrets of his appeal, from his life philosophy and lyricism to masterful colours and compositions. Some 200 works – including early street photographs, images for advertising, nudes and paintings – cover Leiter’s career from the 1940s onwards, accompanied by quotations from the artist himself that express his singular world view.
7. Bruce Davidson: In Color
This volume presents Bruce Davidson’s personal selections from his lesser-known color archive, from a period of nearly sixty years. Assignments from various magazines including Vogue, National Geographic, Life, as well as commercial projects, led Davidson to photograph subjects as diverse as fashion (in the early 1960s), the Shah of Iran with his family (1964), keepers of French monuments (1988), the supermodel Kylie Bax (1997), and college cheerleaders (1989). He photographed in India and China, but also at home in New York, in Chicago, and along the Pacific Coast Highway. In 1968, Michelangelo Antonioni invited Davidson to document the making of his film “Zabriskie Point.” Davidson also continued to pursue personal projects, such as photographing the Yiddish writer and Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer (1972–75), the New York City subway (1980), and Katz’s Delicatessen (2004). Often staying on in a country after an official assignment, Davidson documented Welsh coalfields and family holidays in Martha’s Vineyard, and travelled through Patagonia and Mexico.
8. August Sander Masterpieces
Rare book
When August Sander (1876-1964) opened his photography studio in Cologne in 1910, he commenced taking portraits of his fellow Germans. These images laid the foundation for a project of cyclopedic scope that he would pursue until his death. His photographic typology of the society of his day, arranged by rank, occupation, and social status, ranging from "The Farmer" to "The City" and "The Last People," is today considered a milestone in the history of photography. In 1929 Sander published 60 portraits titled Face of our Time selected from his monumental People of the 20th Century project. Our volume is a compilation of 153 of the best-known and most significant portraits of Sander's unfinished lifework, which was slow in receiving the global recognition it deserves. Sander's "fanaticism of a truth seeker," as Alfred Döblin phrased it in his preface to Face of Our Time, has since served as a model for generations of photographers.
9. Martin Parr - The Last Resort
When Martin Parr's 'The Last Resort' was first published and exhibited in 1986 it divided both critics and audiences alike. Some saw it as the finest achievement to date of colour photography in Britain whilst others viewed it as an aberration . With the benefit of hindsight there is little doubt that it transformed documentary photography in Britain and placed Parr amongst the world s leading photographers. The book is now recognised as a classic and is highly sought by collectors worldwide. Steering a perilous course between objectivity and voyeurism, Parr viewed the decaying holiday resort of New Brighton and its holidaymakers in a way that was new, unique and deeply disturbing. And he did so in colour, something which at the time was seen as revolutionary for documentary work. For some his camera seemed cold and cruel as it followed the working classes desperately pursuing their holiday dreams surrounded by dereliction and decay and wading through the apparently endless detritus of a pollution-ridden consumer society. Others felt it showed an affectionate, humorous and humanistic response from Parr. However it was viewed, it was undoubtedly a sharp, bitter satire of the Britain of the Thatcher years.
10. Josef Koudelka: Exiles
One of the most powerful documents of the spiritual and physical state of exile ever published
About Exiles, Cornell Capa once wrote, 'Koudelka's unsentimental, stark, brooding, intensely human imagery reflects his own spirit, the very essence of an exile who is at home wherever his wandering body finds haven in the night...'
In this revised and expanded edition of the 1988 classic, which includes new images, Josef Koudelka's work once more forms a powerful document of the spiritual and physical state of exile. Most of the images were taken in Europe during Koudelka's own twenty-year exile from his native Czechoslovakia, starting in 1970, after having left in the wake of photographing the Soviet-led invasion of Prague. The sense of private mystery that fills these photographs speaks of passion and reserve, of his rage to see. Solitary, moving, deeply felt and strangely disturbing, the images in Exiles suggest alienation, disconnection and love.
Exiles evokes some of the most compelling and troubling themes of the twentieth century, still resonating with equal force during this time of migrations and profound transcience.
11. William Eggleston Portraits
‘I want to make a picture that could stand on its own, regardless of what it was a picture of. I’ve never been a bit interested in the fact that this was a picture of a blues musician or a street corner or something.’ – William Eggleston William Eggleston’s photographs are special for their eccentric, unexpected compositions, playfulness, implied narrative and, above all, his portrayals of people. Over the past half-‐century he has created a powerful and enduring body of work featuring friends and family, musicians, artists and others. Eggleston frequented the 1970s Memphis club scene, developing friendships and getting to know musicians, including Ike Turner, Alex Chilton and others. His fascination with the nightclub culture resulted in the experimental video Stranded in Canton (2005), which chronicles visits to bars in Memphis, Mississippi, and New Orleans. At the same time he encountered and photographed the likes of Dennis Hopper, Eudora Welty and Walter Hopps – and for a brief moment Eggleston even entered the Warhol Factory scene, dating the Warhol protégé, Viva. William Eggleston: Portraits accompanies the first exhibition to explore Eggleston’s pictures of people. Works included span his career from the 1950s through to his well-‐known portraits of the 1970s to the present day. The catalogue includes an essay, chronology and beautifully reproduced exhibition plates, as well as a series of revealing interviews with Eggleston and his close family members, conducted in Memphis by exhibition curator Phillip Prodger.
12. Gerda Taro: Inventing Robert Capa
In Paris in 1934, a young and beautiful Jewish émigrée, Gerda Pohorylles, met a Hungarian political exile, André Friedmann. They reinvented themselves as the photographers Gerda Taro and Robert Capa and he would become the most important photojournalist of his generation.
When Gerda was killed in the Spanish Civil war at the age of twenty-six, Robert Capa was her most notable mourner his grief was beyond control. Her funeral drew crowds of thousands and she became a hero of the political left. Despite the legend that was built around her, she subsequently became a mere footnote in Capa's story. Seventy years after her death a long-lost suitcase was discovered in Mexico, containing thousands of negatives by Capa and Taro. Most astonishingly of all, the Mexican suitcase showed that photographs that had been attributed previously to Capa were, in fact, the work of Taro.
Jane Rogoyska s book will trace Taro s life and reveal the depth of her relationship with Capa. Charismatic and extraordinary, they epitomised one of the most tumultuous periods of the century.
13. René Burri: Mouvement / Movement
Over the course of a half-century, the photographs of René Burri (1933-2014) have tracked the turning points, triumphs and crises of the twentieth century. Whether it was the 15-year-old Burri's portrait of Winston Churchill or his later portrayals of Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Richard Nixon, Anwar as-Sadat or Muammar al-Gaddafi, all have lodged themselves in the collective consciousness. Removed from sensationalism yet no less striking are Burri's images of the theater of war, of people suffering in poverty and calamity. And as if to hold such horrors in check, Burri turned his lens with equal intensity to the spheres of beauty and creativity--to the landscapes of Latin America, to great artists such as Picasso and Maria Callas, and to luminaries of architecture such as Le Corbusier and Oscar Niemeyer. This two-volume collection offers an extensive compilation of images from the eminent photojournalist.
14. Harry Gruyaert: Edges
The ‘edges’ that Harry Gruyaert, a pre-eminent member of the Magnum photo agency, explores in this incredibly lush, full-colour book, are the oceans, seas and rivers where humans meet the edge and the water begins. This unusual volume, which opens from the top up, takes the reader to Israel’s Dead Sea, the Mali River in Niger, the North Sea of Iceland, South Korea and Biarritz, as Gruyaert’s sensitive photos record the subtle chromatic vibrations of the edges of the Orient and the Occident. Gruyaert opposes the hustle of the city with a pared-down, yet intense, nature. His landscapes are never empty; they are inhabited places where light, colour, objects, people and situations weave a serene, sublime tableau.
This beautifully produced photographic manifesto reveals the profoundly poetic character of Gruyaert’s work, and the sensual elegance of his faultless compositions.
15. Sergio Larrain: London. 1959.
In 1958, Sergio Larrain’s photographs of a smoggy, down-at-heel London captured an extraordinarily powerful vision of the city. Larrain's London is a fast-moving blur of activity. He revealed the signs of the emergence of a new, post-war London society – in its streets, parks, pubs and clubs – and captured the class divisions, the burgeoning fashions of its youth, and the everyday life of Londoners about to enter a new decade: the Sixties. The photographs brought Larrain to the attention of Henri Cartier-Bresson, who immediately signed him to Magnum Photos.
This edition comprises the entire series including around forty previously unseen images from the archives of Magnum Photos. These powerful photographs conjure up the mood of a coal-fired, smoke-laden London that has long since disappeared.
16. Annie Leibovitz: Wonderland
“[A] gorgeous anthology of fashion images … Leibovitz is nothing less than America’s greatest living photographic portraitist … she has changed fashion photography forever.” – Anna Wintour
Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz’s surprising account of her encounters with fashion over five decades
‘Looking back at my work, I see that fashion has always been there,’ Annie Leibovitz observes in the preface to Wonderland. ‘Fashion plays a part in the scheme of everything, but photography always comes first for me. The photograph is the most important part. And photography is so big that it can encompass journalism, portraiture, reportage, family photographs, fashion ... My work for Vogue fueled the fire for a kind of photography that I might not otherwise have explored.’
Includes 350 extraordinary images (many of them previously unpublished) featuring a wide and diverse range of subjects: Nicole Kidman, Serena Williams, Pina Bausch, RuPaul, Cate Blanchett, Lady Gaga, Matthew Barney, Kate Moss, Natalia Vodianova, Rihanna, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Karl Lagerfeld, Nancy Pelosi. With a foreword by Anna Wintour.
17. Andy Warhol. Polaroids 1958-1987
Andy Warhol was a relentless chronicler of life and its encounters. Carrying a Polaroid camera from the late 1950s until his death in 1987, he amassed a huge collection of instant pictures of friends, lovers, patrons, the famous, the obscure, the scenic, the fashionable, and himself. Created in collaboration with the Andy Warhol Foundation, this book features hundreds of these instant photos.
Portraits of celebrities such as Mick Jagger, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Nicholson, Yves Saint Laurent, Pelé, Debbie Harry are included alongside images of Warhol’s entourage and high life, landscapes, and still lifes from Cabbage Patch dolls to the iconic soup cans. Often raw and impromptu, the Polaroids document Warhol’s era like Instagram captures our own, offering a unique record of the life, world, and vision behind the Pop Art maestro and modernist giant.
18. By Helmut Newton - Polaroids
Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was one of the most influential fashion photographers of all time. Born in Berlin, he arrived in Australia in 1940 and married June Brunell (a.k.a. Alice Springs) eight years later. He first achieved international fame in the 1970's while working principally for French Vogue, and his celebrity and influence grew over the decades. Newton preferred to shoot in streets or interiors, rather than studios. Controversial scenarios, bold lighting, and striking compositions came to form his signature look. In 1990 he was awarded the Grand Prix National for photography; in 1992 the German government awarded him Das Grosse Verdienstkreuz for services to German culture, and he was appointed Officer des Arts, Lettres et Sciences by S.A.S. Princess Caroline of Monaco. In 1996, he was appointed Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French Minister of Culture.
Working and living in close companionship with his wife until his death at 83, his images remain as distinctive, seductive and original as ever.
19. Peter Lindbergh. On Fashion Photography. 40th Ed.
It was on a Malibu beach in 1988 that Peter Lindbergh shot the White Shirts series, images now known the world over. Simple yet seminal, the photographs introduced us to Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Rachel Williams, Karen Alexander, Tatjana Patitz, and Estelle Lefébure. This marked the beginning of an era that redefined beauty, and Lindbergh would go on to alter the landscape of fashion photography for the decades that followed.
This edition gathers more than 300 images from forty years of Lindbergh’s career. It traces the German photographer’s cinematic inflections and humanist approach, which produced images at once seductive and introspective.
In 1980 Rei Kawakubo asked Lindbergh to shoot a Commes des Garçons campaign, one of his earlier forays into commercial photography. Kawakubo gave him carte blanche. The following years brought forth collaborations with the most venerated names in fashion and resulted in a relationship of mutual reverence; Lindbergh’s respect for some of the greatest designers of our time is palpable in his portraits. Among those photographed are Azzedine Alaïa, Giorgio Armani, Alber Elbaz, John Galliano, Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld, Thierry Mugler, Yves Saint Laurent, Jil Sander, and Yohji Yamamoto.
Widely considered a pioneer in his field, Lindbergh shirked the industry standards of beauty and instead celebrated the essence and individuality of his subjects. He was pivotal to the rise of models such as Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Mariacarla Boscono, Lara Stone, Claudia Schiffer, Amber Valletta, Nadja Auermann, and Kristen McMenamy.
Lindbergh’s reach also extended across Hollywood and beyond: Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling, Richard Gere, Isabelle Huppert, Nicole Kidman, Madonna, Brad Pitt, Catherine Deneuve, and Jeanne Moreau all appear in his works. From the picture chosen by Anna Wintour as the cover of her first Vogue issue to the legendary shot of Tina Turner on the Eiffel Tower, it is never the clothes, celebrity, or glamour that takes center stage in a Lindbergh photograph. Each picture conveys the humanity of its subject with a serene melancholy that is uniquely and unmistakably Lindbergh.
From the outset of his career, Lindbergh was well-known in the contemporary art world, where his photographs were exhibited in galleries long before they appeared in magazines. This edition features an updated introduction adapted from an interview in 2016, allowing a glimpse behind Lindbergh’s lens, where the photographer recounts his early collaborations, the tenuous relationship between commercial and fine art, and the power of storytelling.