If Only Four Books....

[Bill_1856]

Mark, it must have been the Dektol fumes. Maybe I was thinking in metric.

[Hassle Vlad]

Mark Sawyer's excellent point raises the flip side of Kirk Gittings's question: if you could throw four photography books into a nearby fire, which four would you chuck? Not trying to hijack the thread.

[Oren Grad]

I have a fairly modest collection of photo books, though it does include a sampling of the usual suspects (Ansel, Weston, HC-B, etc). But I never think of them in terms of which ones are LF and which ones aren't.

These are the ones I'd grab:

David Vestal, The Art of Black and White Enlarging
William Clift, A Hudson Landscape
Rachel Giese, The Donegal Pictures and Sweeney's Flight

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

1. Monsters and madonas / William Mortensen
2. BTZS / Davis
3. Dune / Edward and Brett Weston
4. Mortensen on the negative / William Mortensen.
You only said four, so Ansel just wasn't up to the cut.

[paulr]

"if you could throw four photography books into a nearby fire ..."

the family of man, edited by steichen

any of the dozens of interchangeable stock books and commercial photography workbooks that clutter up cubicles at ad agencies.

i have some others in mind, but i'd rather not name any living photographers. it's not nice. and it's hard to choose.

[neil poulsen]

This is a tough choice!

1] Modern Architecture, Photographs by Ezra Stoller. (I think out of print, and an incredible selection of architectural photographs taken back in the golden days of black and white.)

2] Portfolios of Ansel Adams. (First to inspire me towards large format.)

3] Edward Weston, His Life and Photographs. (Finest of all B&W photographers.)

4] Pistils, Robert Mapplethorpe. (I like his flower photographs.)

5] Notebook containing list of titles, publishers, authors and images showing proof of ownership of all other books!

[Struan Gray]

Paul: I hummed and hawed over stealing the library copy so long that someone else beat me to it. I think there is a modern edition of Rum Doodle, but like most parodies it doesn't really bear repeated reading. "Has been High" is a standard mark of approval in our family.

I can't bring myself to burn books deliberately, but I wouldn't be too sad if a tragic accident engulfed all copies of Susan Sontag's "On Photography".

[Nicholas F. Jones]

From a library of about 200 titles, all but a few both LF and b/w:

1) Ansel Adams, Yosemite and the High Sierra
2) Brett Weston, Voyage of the Eye
3) Eliot Porter, In Wildness Is the Preservation of the World,
4) Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keefe A Portrait

[Bill Hahn]

Another vote for Strand's "Time In New England"

"Intimations of Paradise" Christopher Burkett

"The Hungry Eye" (Walker Evans photographs)

"The American Wilderness" - Ansel Adams

(At least these four are the ones I'd choose at this very moment. Ask me 20 minutes later, and I'll

have a different list....but I guarantee "Time In New England" would be on it....)

[Andrew O'Neill]

"Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs" by Ansel Adams,
"The Camera, The Negative, The Print" 3 book series by AA,

shoot! that's 4 books already!

Okay, forget "The Making of 40 Photographs"....I'll grab "The History of Photography" by Newhall.
...or should I grab Bruce Barnbaum's book...hmmm

Tough choice. I think I would just end up burning with all me books.