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Best books?
Quincy T
Registered Users Posts: 1,090 Major grins
I know they've been mentioned before, but I am officially instituting this research and development thread for the betterment of myself and the entire documentary forum:
What are the best street/PJ/documentary, et al. books?
GO GO GO.
What are the best street/PJ/documentary, et al. books?
GO GO GO.
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Okay, Quincy - you asked
- First, here are the books I list in my syllabus. IF you were only to invest in two books, if you were only to look at two, the first two Magnum collections, if lived with and absorbed, would do much to advance the photography of anyone serious about improving his or her own work:
“Magnum Contact Sheets” – This massive book – some 500+ pages and a 9 pound shipping weight, available for $93 from Amazon – contains reproductions of more than 120 contact sheets of images shot by about 70 past and present members of the Magnum photo agency, since its founding after WWII the leading collective of documentary photographers and photo journalists. Contact sheets, for those of you who grew up in the digital age, are sheets of photographic paper on which all the negatives from a roll of film are laid and then exposed to the light, producing a single print of all the images on the roll in the order in which they were shot. Photographers and editors looked at the contacts to decide which images to print. This book will not only expose you to some of the greatest images shot by some of the greatest photographers, it will also show you what came before and after the famous images, introduce you to the editing process, and to different photographers’ ways of shooting.
Anything and everything by the truly great, truly committed, Eugene Richards - "War Is Personal," "Cocaine True, Cocaine Blue," "Americans We," "The Fat Baby," "The Knife and Gun Club," "Living Below The Line."
“Magnum Stories” – More from Magnum. This excellent volume, which I have used in the class but is being replaced this year by “Magnum Contact Sheets,” presents examples of the work of more than 70 Magnum photographers, along with the stories of some of their famous shoots, and biographical information about the photographers.
“The Photo Book” – This overview in photos of the history of photography is a must-own, particularly as it’s available in a $9.95 miniature version.
“The Day-to-Day Life of Albert Hastings” – Kaylynn Deveney and Albert Hastings. If this book doesn’t inspire you – sell your camera. It is a little jewel, a successful marriage of art photography and pure documentary photography, and demonstrates how the simplest of ideas can produce a sublime project.
“Digging” – Michael Hintlian. The Big Dig as you have never seen it or thought of it. As I wrote in an Amazon review – “At its most basic, Digging is to the workers of Boston's Big Dig, the endless construction project that has remade the face of downtown Boston, what Lewis Hine's work from the early 1930s is to the workers who built the Empire State Building: a memorial in photographs to the pure muscle power that makes real the dreams of engineers. Hintlian set out more than four years ago to preserve for the ages the contribution of the workers whose daily toil would otherwise be forgotten when the last concrete was poured and the Big Dig was finally finished.
“W. Eugene Smith’s Pittsburgh Project,” available in hard cover and paper. Selections from the seminal work by the inventor of the modern photo story – if you are not inspired by this, sell your camera.
“The Jazz Loft Project: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue, 1957-1965” – Last year the class took a Saturday trip to New York City to see a show of this work; would that we could again this year. We started the day seeing the Cartier-Bresson retrospective at the MOMA, and then saw the Smith show. I came away from the two shows acknowledging that without Cartier-Bresson there could not have been a Smith, but Smith’s work is far more powerful and emotionally resonant.
“Requiem : By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina,” by Horst Faas and Tim Page, out of print by worth digging for. This is a truly magnificent collection of combat photographs by, as the title makes clear, photographers who did not survive the combat they were covering. Here you’ll find work by some of the known greats, including Robert Cappa and Larry Burrows, as well as by some of the unknown greats, including, especially, Henri Huet.
“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Man, the Image and the World: A Retrospective.” This is the ultimate collection by the man who ‘invented’ 35 mm photography, helped found the great photo agency/collective Magnum, and who coined the term, “decisive moment.” Although Bresson is often described as a “photojournalist, he really wasn’t one. He adopted the label because his Magnum founding partner Robert Cappa told him that if he described himself as what he was, a surrealist photographer, he would never get work.
“Outside Inside,” Bruce Davidson. Okay, it’s three volumes, in a slipcase, and weighs in at 23 pounds, and contains more than 900 images. But what images! It’s all here: Davidson’s legendary “Brooklyn Gang” essay, his circus work, his civil rights photography, “East 100th Street,” “Central Park,” his subway project from the 1970s, all the photos from the book “England and Scotland,” and his more recent work on Los Angeles. The printing in this book is so good one wants to cut out prints and frame them – but hopefully one is not deranged enough to do so.
“The Americans,” Robert Frank. A seminal work. You cannot claim to be serious about photography and be unfamiliar with this book. If you are willing to spend the money, or it's in your library, check out "Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans." This massive edition includes all the contact sheets, the mockup of the book prepared by Frank, and a number of fascinating essays - in addition to the fact that it is oversize.
“Inferno,” James Nachtweys overwhelming collection of anti-war photographs of combat and its ultimate results. A book that will weigh as heavily on your conscience as it will on your lap.
"Migrants" and "Working," by Sebastio Selgado. Perhaps the most technically skilled documentary photographer. His work is photographically so beautiful that some have charged that it constitutes pornography of poverty, and buries its subjects in its beauties. The counter argument, of course, is that by making hell a beautiful place, Salgado gets people to look at it who otherwise never would.
“Driftless: Photographs From Iowa,” Danny Wilcox Frazier. A young documentary photographer captures life in rural Iowa, the land in which he grew up. That Robert Frank dained to write a short forward for this body of work should tell you something about it’s quality. Suffice it to say that many of the images are nothing short of astounding, as is the honesty they reflect. By the way, Google "Driftless" and go look at the project on-line, with fantastic videos. This is the future of documentary work.
You can't go wrong with any of the major W. Eugene Smith monographs. If you can find it, check out Saul Leiter's "Early Color." Take a look at the Vivian Maier book. Anything by Helen Levitt, and/or any of the FSA photographers.
I'll try to come up with this others, but this should hold you for a while.
"He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan
"The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
Expensive! But, I suppose I will get what I pay for. I think I'll start with The Jazz Loft, as I can download that and begin reading it on my Mac, and Driftless, which I think I'll find inspiring.
Frazier is also a member of the FSA-esque group project: Facing Change: Documenting America that is well worth a look (website, not a book, yet)
If you can find a copy (University Library?) I highly recommend Jonas Bendiksen's book Satellites from his seven-year journey through former Soviet Republics. I wish I could afford a copy. Bendiksen is also a fairly young photographer and member of Magnum.
And I am also such a huge fan of Larry Towell, a sharecropping farmer from Ontario who has focused most famously on Mennonites in Ontario and Mexico but also the war in El Salvador, Palestinian conflict and other areas with an underlying theme of landless people. However, I would recommend his most recent book, The World from My Front Porch, which is an inspiration to me and proves you don't have to travel the world to be a great photographer. Towel is a member of Magnum.
Josef Koudelka, Gypsies. Published in the 70's and recently rereleased with additional photos there is no better place to begin with one of the greatest photographers of the century. That he himself became a man without a country following the Soviet occupation of his native city Prague only adds to the poignancy of his work.The gypsies often felt sorry for him, saying he was more poor than they were, as he slept on thee ground under the stars and they rested in their wagons. Koudelka is also a member of Magnum.
And one more most people probably won't get. Alec Soth's 8x10 camera work straddles the line between contemporary fine art photography and editorial/documentary work. His first two books, Sleeping by the Mississippi, and, Niagra, are recommended if only to challenge assumptions about documentary photography. Soth is a member of Magnum and his initial acceptance was not without controversey.
All excellent suggestions. And, btw, some of the Sattelite project is in Magnum Contact Sheets.
"He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan
"The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
BD, have you seen the work of LUCEO, a small photo collective? All young, and all quite, quite good going well beyond traditional newspaper work. I liked James Estrin's piece on NYT' Lens Blog titled, If photojournalism is dead, what's LUCEO?
If you can get 3 more books, get one of each on Smith, Henri Cartier Bresson, and Salgado. I am partial to Pittsburgh project, any of HCB, and Migrations. Those 3 are my "heroes."
If you like humor, get Sematko. Or Erwitt's dogs.
If you like grits, get Richards. If you like war photos, well, there's Nachtwey.
As for blogs, I like Andrew exactly for what Seastack say. There are lots of lousy street photog blog out there. Look at their photos. If they suck, then move on...
// richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
richardmanphoto on Facebook and Instagram
And of course, get it. It's actually a harder book to "get" than Smith/HCB/Salgado, but an absolute gem once you "get" it.
// richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
richardmanphoto on Facebook and Instagram