on reading photography books

[jp]

How do you read/process photo/art books?

Do you read it cover to cover?
Do you skim the pages and see what catches your eye?
Is it a coffee table book for a while?
Do you shelf it and refer to it once in a while if you are curious about a photographer or style (a pre-google reference library)
Do you chop it up and hang photos on the wall?

I notice many photographers have amassed quite a serious collection of books. I patiently pick up a book when the used price is right on amazon. I'm a slow reader and have about a half dozen books ahead of me. No need to get another for quite a while. Some of the writing can be a bit dry, but I read them cover to cover anyways since I am very interested in photo history. Beats fiction any day of the week.

[Vaughn]

I just look at the pictures...hee, hee...

Actually, many different ways. I like starting from the back and working forward. Sometimes I randomly open pages.

My book shelf is 8 foot long -- I like seeing the books out and easy to grab.

[Darin Boville]

Are you talking about text-based books rather than monographs?

To tell the truth, most writing about photography is fairly worthless, unless you are fascinated by academic philosophy, etc. So the answer would be "I read it cover to cover when I was younger" but don't even bother much anymore. Just look at the art magazines--Art News, Art in America, ArtForum. Not much serious going on.

If you are talking about monographs I usually skip the into texts and go through the photos one by one, fairly quickly but not flipping. I have to wait until I'm in the right mood for this. Then, if warranted, I'll go back in more deeply, maybe visiting the book multiple times. I'll glance at the intro to see if it is worth reading--if it is artspeak or not. Might skim it. Once in a great while I'll read it.

--Darin

[Ken Lee]

When creating this series (http://www.kenleegallery.com/html/like/index.php) about others' work I studied only enough text to gather a few lines of biography. A year later I remember all the photographs, but only a few of the names.

I myself have written several essays (http://www.kenleegallery.com/html/essays/index.php), but the longest one is only 10 words in length :rolleyes:

Basically, I look at the photos and ignore the writing as much as possible.

[h2oman]

I recently read through Ansel's "Examples" and "The Negative." I'd been through the first probably several times before, in bits and pieces. It is nice because you can read just a couple pages at a sitting. (Wherever you happen to sit. :D)

I find that much of "Examples" is enjoyable, but useless, and much of "The Negative" is useful but not all that enjoyable. What really struck me, though, is the few scattered statements or thoughts (in both books) that are incredibly insightful.

Otherwise, I own a bunch of books of photographs that I look at a lot. I just randomly pick one out when I have a few minutes, and look. I like to spend a few minutes looking at photographs before I go to bed, in an effort to take my mind of the minutiae of job, house, etc. that seems to creep into my head when I'm trying to sleep.

[Vaughn]

The written word is an art form as well as a medium for providing information. Some visual artists have trouble with both, some are wonderful (such as the Ted Orland). One has to be as ready to take in the written word as one is ready to take in the visual images. There is not much "universal" about it.

[Bill Burk]

Right now I'm reading Ishmael Reed's Mumbo Jumbo.

As for photography books...

They all go in the library, a euphemism for a place where I spend time going over the same pages over and over until my wife says "haven't you memorized it by now?"

[jcoldslabs]

Do you shelf it and refer to it once in a while if you are curious about a photographer or style?

After an initial slow and thorough read through, then this.

J.

[paulr]

What Vaughn said.

If it's a truly great book, it will work like a machine: all the parts it needs in all the right places, and no unnecessary anything. In these cases you're denying yourself the potential pleasures by skipping anything.

Some books are just containers for pictures, with obligatory text thrown at the beginning or end. Others are works of book art that are greater than the sum of their parts.

I wouldn't put text in a book if I didn't think it was important. Text doesn't have to be academic (although unlike Darin, I don't see anything wrong with that if it suits). It can be autobiographical, journalistic, personal essay, meditation, poetry, history, whimsy. It can be fictional, political, polemical, or epistolary. It can be nonsensical, graphical, or absurdist. Whatever works!

That said, a lot it is terrible. There are plenty of second paragraphs on my photo bookshelf that I never made it to.

[Kodachrome25]

I definitely vary in how I approach them. For example, I am getting to the point in a year long edit of photographs in that I will be putting out my own book soon, so I have been exploring the books I own deeper than usual. Some are reference, some are monographs, some have great writing and some do not, some are partly to half filled with my photos. And then some are pure magic in the history of photography like the amazing tactility of "The Decisive Moment".

I look forward to bringing some interesting tactile qualities to my own book in a few months...

[Struan Gray]

Some writers use words and concepts like a toddler who's just found a new colour in the paintbox. 'Narrative' or 'vision' quickly get me wondering if there's any of either. But I'm used to trawling dull or irritating texts for useful information and ideas, and the essays in photography monographs occasionally contain gems.

I prefer to read descriptions of process - how people work, how they develop ideas or styles, what pushes them - and reviews of shows or books. Theory less so, although the sociology of photography is a frustrating nexus of interesting facts and inpenetrable writing.

I read more non-fiction than fiction, and am currently fascinated by books of illustrated non-fiction. The interplay of photographs and text when the photographs are not having to be self-consciously arty, has given me some useful insights into my own photography and that of others. For example, the photos in a history of Scottish mountaineering are much more interesting to me than those in a coffee table book of Scottish mountain landscapes.

[paulr]

I have a backburner project, exploring ways that photographs and text might interact. Short version: it's hard.

The Spoken Image (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Spoken-Image-Photography-Language/dp/186189032X) offers some good thinking on the topic, if you have plenty of stamina. Its own words sometimes make for heavy going, and much of the emphasis is on journalistic language.

[Jac@stafford.net]

We have three libraries in our small town and two of them have acquisitioners who either teach or simply enjoy good photography. With such a good supply of books, and photographer friends with books to read, I rarely buy a book, and I have almost finished giving away about 600 books from my library. It is one of the end-of-life duties.

As for reading the texts with photographs - sometimes with a willingness to be surprised, but as someone else wrote, I rarely get to the second paragraph.

[Vaughn]

A good friend has made quite a few books (as in hand-made, but also some printed commercially). From her, I understand that in the world of book-making, a book is not 'officially' a book unless there are words in it. I guess without the words, it is 'just' considered a bound portfolio.

[Jody_S]

I'll usually try reading a page or two, but honestly with most I end up just looking at the photos. They either speak for themselves or they don't.

[Struan Gray]

a book is not 'officially' a book unless there are words in it.

I get annoyed by the way that monographs on Amazon are sometimes credited to whoever wrote the introductory essay, with the actual photographer coming in second place, if at all.

[paulr]

A good friend has made quite a few books (as in hand-made, but also some printed commercially). From her, I understand that in the world of book-making, a book is not 'officially' a book unless there are words in it. I guess without the words, it is 'just' considered a bound portfolio.

That's curious. I have several of Keith A. Smith's books on artist's bookmaking (Structure of the Visual Book, etc.) and get no sense of this bias from him.

I wonder if Struan's observation has to do with entrenched book vendor policies, or with authors' and artists' compulsions to seek people more famous than themselves to write the essay.

[ROL]

How do you read/process photo/art books?



Do you read it cover to cover?
Every book I buy (not that many). I'm more of a slow, savory reader. All the books my wife buys me – not so much.


Do you skim the pages and see what catches your eye?
Skimmers are for cement ponds, where the surface scintillations catch my eye – Ooooh, shiny!.


Is it a coffee table book for a while?
No coffee table.:( All seriousness aside, that whole deal is now more of a mid 20th century retro design concept.


Do you shelf it and refer to it once in a while if you are curious about a photographer or style (a pre-google reference library)
I have a hard time ever parting with a book I have invested in cover to cover, so I guess they're all analog reference sooner or later.


Do you chop it up and hang photos on the wall?
Puleeeze... That is so wrong on so many levels. Anyway, only the best fine art prints hang on my walls.;)




I'm a slow reader and have about a half dozen books ahead of me. No need to get another for quite a while. Some of the writing can be a bit dry, but I read them cover to cover anyways since I am very interested in photo history. Beats fiction any day of the week.
As above, we're very much alike in this.




...I wish you multi–specific questioners would save me some formatting time and just use multiple choice.

[DrTang]

I just look at the pix..for reference or inspiration or new ideas

I rarely read one word

[John Kasaian]

It definitely depends.
Techy books get read once and shelved for reference later.
Portfolios get looked at cover to cover then shelved for inspiration if and when needed.
Truly boring books get donated to our parish school carnival's General Store.

[Heroique]

Vladimir Nabokov (the great novelist, think Lolita) asked his students to combine four of the following definitions that would make a good reader:


1. The reader should belong to a book club.
2. The reader should identify himself or herself with the hero or the heroine.
3. The reader should concentrate on the social-economic level.
4. The reader should prefer a story with action and dialogue to one with none.
5. The reader should have seen the book in a movie.
6. The reader should be a budding author.
7. The reader should have imagination.
8. The reader should have memory.
9. The reader should have a dictionary.
10. The reader should have some artistic sense.

“Of course, as you have guessed,” Nabokov says, “the good reader is one who has…” [edited for suspense, but as Nabokov says, you’ve already selected the correct four, right?] :D