Books on the History of Photography?

[Michael Heald]

Hello! I've read the thread on magazines folks read. I thought I would start an off shoot.

One reason I scan/read magazines is to get a handle on who is photographing and what they are photographing.

I've gotten a handle on the different genres of photography - news, landscape, fashion, etc. Can anyone recommend a book on the history of photography?

I don't mean equipment, though that would be a part of it. I mean a book on how/when/why different genres of photography developed, who the icons of those genres were, and examples of their work. I'm curious to see how these genres have developed over the years and how the photos that I see being published currently relate to the roots of the genre to which a photo may belong. Best regards.

Mike

[Mark Sampson]

The classic work is by Beaumont Newhall- "The History of Photography". A great place to start.

[Greg Lockrey]

"The Blue and Gray in Black and White"
A History of Civil War Photogrphy
Bob Zeller

[tim atherton]

The classic work is by Beaumont Newhall- "The History of Photography". A great place to start.

it's pretty limiting though and rather seriously biased in many places. Does cover plenty of the basics though

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

it's pretty limiting though and rather seriously biased in many places. Does cover plenty of the basics though
So Atherton, do you have a Paddy quinn persona under this new software like you did in the old one? What is the matter, you dont have the balls to argue under your own name?.....

[Bill_1856]

The real classic is "The Origins of Photography," by Helmut Gernsheim, Thames and Hudson, NY, 1982, LOC 82-80979. I believe that his collection (probably the first serious attempt to collect photography as an art) ended up in Texas.

[Bill_1856]

As I was putting the Gernsheim back into my bookcase, right next to it I noticed one of my favorite photography books, "Bystander, a History of Street Photograpy," by Westerbeck and Meyerowitz, Bullfinch Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8212-1755-0. This one is VERY readable.

[paulr]

it's pretty limiting though and rather seriously biased in many places. Does cover plenty of the basics though

I'd agree with that. It was my text in college, but now it's more useful as a "history of the history of photography." Newhall wasn't much of a scholar; it's mostly a catalog and interpretation of stuff he liked, without any attention paid to anything else. A curator can be given a lot of slack for this kind of thing, but not a historian.

Most glaring, my 1982 edition of the book devotes a whopping 20 of it's 300 plus pages to the second half of the 20th century. It seems Mr. Newhall and his editors lost interest sometime after 1940.

I wish I could make another recommendation. I've seen some newer, more serious looking histories, but haven't bought any. Most of my research has been based on smaller books and articles. I'm curious to know what other people consider to be the new standard.

[tim atherton]

not really a history of photography book, but rather a history of photography books (and an idiosyncratic one at that...), but Martin Parr's and Gary Badger's "The Photobook: A History.
Volume I" is intriguing and fascinating as well as informative.

Eagerly awaiting Vol II due in September

(BTW - his new "Mexico" book is fun too - due out soon I think)

[Mike H.]

Newhall, as a curator, probably (just my uneducated guess) also had a "new world" bent. Since most original photography originated in Europe, is there a book written in English which chronicals the history of photography from a European scholar's viewpoint?

Also, from another viewpoint, the most interesting reading I've done has been biographies of photographers, stuff like Weston's daybooks, Walker Evans by James R. Mellow, O'Keeffee & Stieglitz by Benita Eisler and Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder. I've only scratched the surface there, so if there are others of that ilk that folks recommend, I'd love to know, too.

[Brian Ellis]

The best history of photography book I know of is "A World History of Photography" by Naomi Rosenblum. It's the text used for many college level history of photography courses. It's a true world history, doesn't just focus on one country or on one genre. The only downside is that it's big and heavy, more conducive to students studying at a desk than hand-holding while reading in bed. But if you want thorough and comprehensive, profusely illustrated, this is the book.

[robc]

if you visit http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/ and look at the bibliography you will an extensive list of suggested titles for study.

The site is worth reading in its own right.

[Bill Hahn]

Mike,

A couple of others:

"From Adams To Stieglitz" by Nancy Newhall - another book "to start with".
"Shadow and Substance" - the biography of W. Eugene Smith by Jim Hughes
Ansel Adam's Autobiography - I was quite surprised he included some of his attacks on
William Mortensen.
"Through Another Lens" - Charis Wilson, about her life with Weston.

(As an aside, I read Eisler's "O'Keeffe and Stieglitz" just before reading Alex Beam's "Gracefully Insane", his history of the McLean mental hospital (see "Girl Interrupted", "A Beautiful Mind", and any biography of the poet Robert Lowell). There was a patient there, Carl Liebman, who had had every therapy known to man - including analysis by Freud - without success. Liebman's initial Park Street doctor when a child was none other than Leopold Stieglitz - Alfred's brother! I emailed Beam with this bit of information and got back a nice reply.)



Also, from another viewpoint, the most interesting reading I've done has been biographies of photographers, stuff like Weston's daybooks, Walker Evans by James R. Mellow, O'Keeffee & Stieglitz by Benita Eisler and Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder. I've only scratched the surface there, so if there are others of that ilk that folks recommend, I'd love to know, too.

[Brian Ellis]

Also, from another viewpoint, the most interesting reading I've done has been biographies of photographers, stuff like Weston's daybooks, Walker Evans by James R. Mellow, O'Keeffee & Stieglitz by Benita Eisler and Ansel Adams by Mary Street Alinder. I've only scratched the surface there, so if there are others of that ilk that folks recommend, I'd love to know, too.

In addition to those you and others have mentioned:

"Berenice Abbott and Eugene Atget," Worswick

"Diane Arbus," Bosworth

"Paul Strand, Essays on His Life and Work," Stange, ed.

"Dorothea Lange, " Partridge

"Ruth Bernhard, Between Art & Life," Bernhard

"Imogen Cunningham, Ideas Without End," Lorenz

"Ansel Adams, Letters 1916 - 1984," Alinder, ed.

"Maplethorpe," Morristroe

"Walker Evans," Rathbone

[Doug Howk]

The New History of Photography, edited by Michel Frizot, contains essays by many scholars of photography. An interesting read.

[Bill Hahn]

Not that anybody cares, but "Park Street" should be "Park Avenue" in my post above.

[toddstew]

Hey this is my first post here at lf! I second the world history of photography book. Also take a look at the book, On the Art of Fixing a Shadow. There, my first post is out of the way!
Todd

[John Kasaian]

I came across a delightful little book on the remainder table Father Browne: A Life in Pictures by E.E. O'Donnell, SJ. published by Woldhound Press. It spans the efforts of a Jesuit photography enthusiast who took the only surviving on-board photos of the RMS Titanic (he hopped off on a tender just before the Titanic sailed of into history) His shot aerial photos for the RAF in WW1, recorded the electrification of Britain and Ireland, Atget like documentaries of a fading Ireland & Austrailia, and then more war photography in WW2. After he passed away, his chest with all these negatives was delivered to his Order's headquartes and sat for a few decades until E.E. O"'Donnell opened the trunk and discoverd the archive of approx. 42,000 negatives inside. The images where archived and widely exhibited in the 19990's with a grant from Ark Life, a subsidiary of Allied Irish Bank.

A fu n little history of one man's Photography.

[Ben Crane]

I agree with previous posters who recommended Beumont Newhall's book. A couple of my favorites that haven't been mentioned:

Perpetual Mirage: Photographic Narratives of the Desert West by May Castleberry. It is not a complete history of photography by any means but it covers western landscape photography pretty well which happens to be the area I'm most interested in.

Also the Photograph Collector's Guide by Witkin and London. It obviously gives history from a collector's view point, but this is a valuable persective for any photographer interested in selling their work as well as for collectors. I believe it was published in the late 1970s so a lot of recent work is missing.

[Mike H.]

Bill and Brian: Thanks! You just shot my book budget for the next year. :-(

[Michael Heald]

Hello! Thank you for the suggestions. I'll start with Newhall's book for an overview. Best regards.

Mike

[tim atherton]

To supplement the main texts, there are also many good books that follow the offshoot branches

such as Rosenblum's "History of Women Photographers"

or Anne Wilkes Tuckers "The History of Japanese Photography".

all equally fascinating

[paulr]

150 years of photography is a beautiful book. kind of an abbridged catalog of photgography from the beginning to the 80s.

I still would not consider the Newhall book to be an "overview." Today it's really just of scholarly interest, to see what the state of photo history was way back when. These newer texts (like rosenblum) are probably a much better bet, but I can't vouch for them personally.

[Mike Lopez]

I'll add "Looking at Photographs," by John Szarkowski. Not only will you be treated to Szarkowski's writing (he is my favorite photographic writer of all I've encountered), you will get a very broad introduction to the workings of 100 different photographers from history.

[paulr]

I love "Looking at Photographs." Not so much as a history but as a celebration of looking itself.

[Mike Lopez]

That book is a gem. I thoroughly enjoy Szarkowski's writing. I hope he continues for a long time.

[Mark Sampson]

When you've gotten through the basics (and there's been some books mentioned I'll have to read now that I know about them), I'd also suggest the anthology "Photographers on Photography". It was edited by Nathan Lyons and first published in the '60s. Another pioneering work, it gives you the writing of the practitioners themselves- often a useful contrast to how the historians look at the subject.