If Only Four Books....

[Kirk Gittings]

The thread on inspiration got me thinking....always dangerous.

I have a huge collection of photography books, but I always return to just a few. If your house was on fire and you could grab only four LF books to save, what would you choose? Mine I think would be:

"Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs" by Ansel Adams,

"Time in New England" by Paul Strand and Nancy Newhall,

"Edward Weston" by Ben Maddow,

and last but certainly not least

"From the Missouri West" by Robert Adams (but I would have a real hard time giving up "Beauty in Photography").

[Michael Graves]

I have two Aperture editions; Minor White and Wynn Bullock that would be the first ones on the stack. They would be followed by Manzanar by A.A. and IT! by Stephen King.

Oh, you said photography books? Then it would be Wright Morris, Photographs and Words.

[Duane Polcou]

"A Personal Selection" Brett Weston.

"The Place No One Knew - Glen Canyon" Eliot Porter

"Slickrock - Endangered Canyons of the Southwest" Philip Hyde

"Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau" Jack Dykinga

[Michael Jones]

Beauty in Photography, The Daybooks (is that one or two?), My Camera on Point Lobos and Hill & Adamson Photographs.

[Matthew Jackson]

I actually only have four LF books that I can think of but even if I had more I'd certainly grab Scotland's Coast and First Light by Joe Cornish.

[Paul Metcalf]

I probably wouldn't be grabbing my photography books because they're all replaceable. But I do have one autographed copy of John Sexton's Places of Power that I might grab. I think I'd concentrate on my "mostly" irreplaceable Conley field cameras.

[paulr]

robert frank, the americans (taught me how to think about editing and sequencing and crafting a body of work ... still teaching me. and it helps me to be a good patriot)

paul strand, national gallery of art retrospective, edited by sarah greenough and printed by richard benson (humbling. and taught me how to print)

stephen shore, uncommon places (kicked my ass when i discovered it a couple of years ago ... decades after it was first printed. got me thinking about color in new ways. and got me thinking about what i'd been doing in new ways).

john szarkowski, looking at photographs (still amazes me ... so many different kinds of work, so many different visions, so many different ways of looking at everything, always with the goal of seeing more, and seeing more clearly)

ask me in a year and the answers might be different ...

[John Kasaian]

For inspiration:
Summit (Vittorio Sella)
On High (Bradfors Washburn)
A Life in Pictures (Fr. Browne)
A really good issue of View Camera.

For Reference and technique, I"d have different lists with different books, so I'd better keep an empty asbestos cardboard box handy in case the library burns down!

Cheers!

[Jim collum]

Paul Caponigro, Masterworks from Forty Years

Richard Misrach, Chronologies.

Kenro Izu, Passage to Angkor

Michael Kenna, Twenty Year Retrospective Second Edition.

[darr]

my very short list:

Alfred Stieglitz's Camera Notes (Christian A. Peterson)
Sacred Legacy (Edward S. Curtis)
Certain Places (William Clift)
Botanical Dances (Huntington Witherill)

[David Karp]

I have books with photos by Adams, Weston, Caponigro, McSavaney, Sexton, Loranc, and others. But I think if I had to choose, I would grab four reference books that would help me make photographs instead of look at those of others (as much as I like to do the latter as well).

If pressed, I would pick:

Thornton, The Edge of Darkness, Adams, The Negative, Adams, The Print, Ctein, Post Exposure.

If I could cheat and take a collection of photos too, I would take Explorations, by Ray McSavaney.

[Walter Foscari]

Volume 2 & 3 of the MOMA's "Work of Atget" series in 4 volumes.

Walker Evans, catalog from the Met.

Basilico's L'esperienza dei luoghi.

[Kirk Gittings]

Surprisingly I have an awful lot of these books mentioned.

Paul though the Robert Frank book "The Americans" is not a LF book. I would have to say that as a book, as a work of art in itself, "The Americans" and "Time in New England" are in my opinion the two finest photographic books ever made.

[Mark Sampson]

Right now, only two.

Edward Weston's "Daybooks", both volumes counting as one.

Paul Strand's "Tir a Mhurain", which I don't own, but should.

I really have a hard time with questions like this- I think books that are primarily of photographs should be considered seperately from books that are primarily text- but that's just how it is. Still worth thinking about, and fun to read people's opinions. Especially when I've never heard of some of the photographers mentioned.

[Ben Calwell]

About the only photo books I have are by George Tice (I like his urban landscapes) , and I have several of Ansel's books.

[Eric Biggerstaff]

Oh geeeeeeze! This is a tough one:

Certain Places - William Clift
Masterworks from 40 Years - Paul Caponigro
Mirrors, Messages and Manifistations - Minor White
One of my Brett Weston books

Good question.

Eric

[Nick Morris]

Let Truth Be Prejudice - W. E. Smith; Essays; World At My Doorstep; Time In New England - P. Strand; Daybooks ; Last Years At Carmel - E. Weston; Immediate Family - S. Mann; Pictures Of People - N. Nixon; Lustrum Press Darkroom 1 & 2; Harry Callahan - H. Callahan; Darkroom Handbook - S. Anchell; 100 Year Book; Negative; Print; Examples; Classic Images - A. Adams; Zone System - M. White, etc. I would have to include my Edward Hopper book of his work; American Realism - a survey of modern American painters; as well as "On Writing" by Stephen King; "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Cold Mountain" ; "Letters of Van Gough" and the films Dekologe and the Three Colors Trilogy by Kieslowski. Is that four yet?

[Struan Gray]

None of my photography monographs are irreplacable - yet - so I suspect I would grab the irreplacable oddballs like exhibition catalogues or the little book from the 1890s about how to photograph splashes of milk using the spark from a Leyden jar. They would all be consigned to the flames long before my first edition of Whymper's "Scrambles among the Alps", or even my own thesis which only exists in four copies.

The two that I would most enthusiastically recommend a firefigher to risk their life saving would be Siskind 100 and Ray Metzker's Landscapes. Only one of those is LF though.

[Joe Davis]

Eugene Atget John Szarkowski 2000,
Eugene Smith Master of the Photographic Essay,
Photography of Max Yavno: Ben Maddow, and
Jeff Wall Catalogue Raisonne 2006

[Emrehan Zeybekoglu]

Wow!.. That's heck of a question.. Although I'd consider my cameras and lenses more than anything else, and that we don't have the same books in our personal libraries, Adams's The Making of 40 Photographs is one of my favorites that I keep going back to often. Another one is Sexton's Listen to the Trees. A third one might be Marc Riboud In China: Forty Years of Photography.

[Jim_3565]

1) Sarah Greenough, "Paul Strand: Sixty Year Retrospective", Aperture
2) Paul Strand and Nancy Newhall, "Time in New England"
3) Brett Weston, "The San Francisco Portfolio", Lodima Press.
4) Raghubir Singh, "River of Colour: The India of Raghubir Singh", Phaidon Press

[Gudmundur Ingolfsson]

Bill Brandt ; Shadow of Light,
Irving Penn; World in a Small Room,
Joel Sternfeld; American Prospects,
Chris Killip; In Flagrante

[Joe Smigiel]

<ol><li>Intimations and Imaginations: Photographs by George Seeley
<li>A Poetic Vision: The Photographs of Anne Brigman
<li>Robert Maxwell: Photographs
<li>Landscape and Figure Composition: Sadakichi Hartmann</ol>

[paulr]

you guys are making it clear that i need a copy of Time in New England.

Struan, I trust you have a copy of The Ascent of Rum Doodle to accompany your Scrambles Amongst the Alps?

[Bill_1856]

My goodness, we're close.

1) Time in New England (Paul Strand). Several years ago I gave my copy to a really good friend, and suffered almost daily until eBay came along and I was able to obtain another copy. It's my favorite of all photo books.

2) The Daybooks of Edward Weston.

3) 60 Examples (Ansel Adams).

4) Henri Cartier-Brssson.

and just to be contrary, I'll add a fifth:

5) Color Photographs (Marie Cosindas).

[CP Goerz]

Playboy centerfold spectacular -all editions

CP Goerz

[Bill_1856]

I failed to notice that it was limited to LF books, so HCB is out, and I'm back to only four.

[Ole Dyre Hesledalen]

Oh brother, that'd be a tough one indeed. There's a whole bunch of books I'd like to be able to save from my library that I unfortunately don't (yet) have. But if the joint went up in flames I'd hope the following books would be at the top of a pile I could reach quickly:

Richard Avedon: "In The American West"

Laura Wilson: "Avedon At Work in The American West" (Gee, who'd guess?)

Fahey/Rich (Ed.): "Masters of Starlight - Photographers in Hollywood"

Yousuf Karsh: "Karsh"

(That's right, folks; only people-LFphotography books!)
Interesting to see the various answers here. Good idea and thread, Mr. Gittings!

[Bruce Watson]

Interesting question. Another way of asking who your influences are. I find that I learn more from images than I can from words. So while I also like Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs by Ansel Adams, I think if I can only have four books, they might be these:

Ansel Adams: Yosemite and the Range of Light

Eliot Porter: Eliot Porter

Sarah Greenough: Paul Strand, An American Vision

Stephen Phillips: Margaret Bourke-White, The Photography of Design 1927-1936

[William Mortensen]

"If your house was on fire and you could grab only four LF books to save, what would you choose?"

Caponigro's "The Wise Silence" and "Megaliths"
Ansel Adams' "An American Place, 1936"
Paul Strand's "Time in New England"

And if there were any Ann Geddes books on the front lawn, I'd throw them in whatever window had the most flames coming out.

Bill- "3) 60 Examples (Ansel Adams)" You must have the expanded edition?

[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.

[John Boeckeler]

My collection of photography books includes many mentioned in this thread. These are some of my favorite LF books: East 100th Street, Bruce Davidson; Haunter of Ruins, Clarence John Laughlin; Wright Morris, Photographs & Words; and Inner Light: The Shaker Legacy, Linda Butler with text by June Sprigg. If we were not restricted to LF, I should include George Tice's Stone Walls, Grey Skies; Up River, the Story of a Maine Fishing Community, Olive Pierce with text by Carolyn Shute; and Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs, for the text as much as the photographs - clear and unpretentious writing.

[Barry Cochran]

1. Walker Evans, "First and Last"
2. Paul Caponigro, "MasterWorks from Forty Years"
3. Edward Weston, "Forms of Passion."

And I would be overcome by smoke trying to decide on my fourth pick from George Tice, "Urban Landscapes", "Ansel Adams at 100" or Wright Morris, "Photographs & Words"

[Scott Walton]

Darkroom Cookbook, my own recipe journals, Ansel's The Negative and my signed Ansel prints... after making sure my wife and son are out safetly!

[Stephen Willard]

Wow, there are an amazing number of books noted here. I intend to print this string and use it to generate my book list for the next 10 summers.

Although I have some of the books listed here, I would not grab any of them. I would probable grab my wife first although I would not need a fire to motivate to do such a thing. And then of course I would grab my mistress, Betty Ann, my camera and her jewelry, the lenses. And if time permitted, I would grab the printout of this string which harbors the books I intend to order for the next 10 summers.

[Joseph Kayne]

1) Cape Light-Joel Meyerowitz

2) Lake Superior Images-Craig Blacklock

3) Eternal Body-Ruth Bernhard

4) Daybooks-Edward Weston

Thanks.

Joe.

[Scott Davis]

Ruth Bernhard - Eternal Body

Reuven Afanador - Torero, or maybe Sombra

There was an excellent monograph whose title escapes me at the moment on Mapplethorpe and 18th century drawings and engravings. Fat sucker too.

Native Americans by Edward Curtis.

Although they're not photographers, I'd try to get my books on Caravaggio, DaVinci and Michelangelo out as well. They're inspirations for me, particularly Caravaggio, since he was such a photographic user of light in his paintings.

I'll go ditto on tossing Ann Geddes into the fires, her and William Wegman. Those dogs are just too precious. Shudder.

[tribby]

don't have any...

well, photo books that is. stacks fill my house, though.

me

[Steve Wilson]

A tough choice, but it would have to be these.

1.Stephen Shore "Uncommon Places"
2.George Tice "Urban Landscapes"
3.Mary Ellen Mark "American Odyssey"
4.John Davies "The British Landscape"

(If I had time to run back into the inferno for a second grab they would be...Arnold Newman "Five Decades", Irving Penn "Worlds in a Small Room", Jerry Uelsmann "Photo Synthesis", Gabriele Basilico "Phaidon 55").;)

[Darin Boville]

I have a fairly robust photo book collection (an assortment, really, hundreds of art and photo books).

I would let it all burn. I would let my negatives and hard drives burn. I would let it all burn.

Too bad the web page wouldn't burn as well.

The past is a heavy load for the future to bear. Think of the opportunity the fire would afford by erasing all of your former inspirations, and all of your former work.

Sort of like being reborn, naked and fully aware. Fully focused upon the future.

--Darin

[Brian C. Miller]

Never mind the books, I'd grab my negatives! Then comes the cameras.

But if I arrived too late, then tomorrow is another day, and very nice film cameras have become cheap.

[dbriannelson]

Edward Weston's Daybooks
John Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs
Susan Sontag's On Photography
John Berger's Ways of Seeing

The last two piss me off, but if something doesn't piss me off, it's not challenging me enough. "Nice" is for wimps.

-Don

[Mike Chini]

Bystander, A History of Street Photography
Strand, Tir A'Mhurain
Brassai, Paris by Night
Robert Frank, The Americans

Of course, there are about a dozen others I'd reach for.

[roteague]

Just to be different:

1.) Photographing the Landscape: The Art of Seeing by John Fielder
2.) Large Format Nature Photography by Jack W. Dykinga
3.) Light and the Art of Landscape Photography by Joe Cornish
4.) Tom Mackie's Landscape Photography Secrets By Tom Mackie

[Brad Rippe]

William Garnett- Aerial Photographs
Ansel Adams- Images 1923-1974
John Sexton- Places of Power
Barbara Morgan- Monograph 1972
Paul Caponigro- Aperture Monograph 1967
Anything by Kirk Gittings

[PViapiano]

Architecture of Silence - David Heald
I didn't see this one on anyone's list. An incredible collection of B&W LF photographs of early Cistercian abbeys in France. Heald is chief photographer for the Guggenheim. His photography in the book, Frank O. Gehry Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, is some of the most beautiful color LF architectural work I've seen.

Explorations - Ray McSavaney
My latest LF book purchase, a signed edition. One of the most inspirational in my small collection.

Michael Kenna Restrospectives - Both volumes have given me much inspiration and very rich and rewarding "down time".

Symphony: Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall - Grant Mumford
Another architectural gem, great compositions, good color. There's a little "something extra" in all these photgraphs; not your usual sterile rendering found in so many architect/building monographs.

So, there you go...I tried to pick a few off the beaten path. If I had to name more, most of my Julius Shulman books would be on the list as well, along with many Irving Penn volumes, such as A Notebook at Random and Platinum Prints.

Truth is...I can't pick only four books. I'd have to take 4 boxes!

[Doug Howk]

For inspiration I'd grab something by Ed Weston: California & the West or Edward Weston - 1886-1958
Anything by Brett Weston: Voyage of the Eye or Lodima's Portfolio series
John Sexton's Recollections is awe inspiring
Wynn Bullock Enchanted Landscape would be my final grab.

[Diane Maher]

I don't have many LF books. As for photo books, if I had to grab any, I'd say
Touchstones - Tillman Crane
Japan - Michael Kenna
Impossible to Forget - Michael Kenna
My wedding album (hey, it has photos in it!)

Moon Boots and Dinner Suits by Jon Pertwee.
I Am the Doctor - Jon Pertwee's Final Memoir by Jon Pertwee/David Howe

To be honest, I'd go for the last three above than worry about any photo books. And even this would be after making sure my husband and the four cats were out of the house.

Diane

[Ben Calwell]

I'd grab my George Tice books.

[Greg Lockrey]

Here I thought I was doing good with my Time-Life book series on photography 1973.:)

The Portfolios of Ansel Adams
Walker Evans
Worlds in a Small Room
Edward Weston
and if I have time:
W. Eugene Smith His Photographs and Notes
and "Decisive Moment" by Henri Cartier-Bresson (Be it known this will be the first one out since it's very early printing.)

[David Millard]

A mixed bag -

Brassai: Paris at Night
O. Winston Link: The Last Steam Railroad in America
Karl Blossfeldt: Urformen der Kunst
E. J. Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, the Red-Light District of New Orleans

About 30 years ago, I worked the night shift in a small New Orleans bar that had prints made from Bellocq's negatives on the wall. I appreciated their company in the early morning hours.

[r.e.]

Almendros, A Man with a Camera, translation of Dias de una camara (the most inspirational book about photography that I've ever come across)
Gowing: Vermeer
James, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes
Keller, Light Fantastic: The Art and Design of Stage Lighting

[Bruce Barlow]

First, LF only:
Weston's "Daybooks" (counts as 1)
Strand's "Time in New England"
Eliot Porter's "In Wildness is the Preservation of the World"
The first Atget volume I could get my hands on

I'd grab a couple others that I keep going back to:
Art and Fear (Bayles and Orland)
The Creative Habit (Twyla Tharp)
On Being a Photographer (Hurn and JAy)
The View from the Studio Door (Orland)
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (Edwards).

[Helen Bach]

Edward Weston's Daybooks
John Szarkowski's Looking at Photographs
Susan Sontag's On Photography
John Berger's Ways of Seeing

The last two piss me off, but if something doesn't piss me off, it's not challenging me enough...

With that in mind I'd rush round to the nearest bookstore and buy anything by Anne Geddes and "My Way With A Lensbaby" by flickrman666.

Other than that I suppose that I would drag along
Murmurs at Every Turn by Raymond Moore
Between Dark and Dark by Tom Cooper
Camp Fire by Hamish Fulton
How To Impress Your Friends and Appear Highbrow by Annie Sprinkle
The Book Whose Title I Have Forgotten by Stephen Shore (you know, the one with the guy breathing on a mirror)
and Advanced Mathematics for Politicians.

[Kirk Gittings]

The Tom Cooper book is an interesting choice. He was a graduate student at UNM when I was an undergraduate. He was my hero in some ways because there was allot of pressure from Coke to give up LF landscape because it was passe (this was 1970!). he basically thumbed his nose at them and did what he was driven to do. All of his books are superb.

[Scott Davis]

I forgot to include on my list my autographed copy of John Dugdale's Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfall. Of non-photo books, even though it needs restoration, my first British printing of the first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin would be on that list. I too would probably die in the fire along with the books, as it's hard to choose from over 1600 books to save. I'd grab the dags and tintypes on the shelf in the library first, most likely.

[Ole Tjugen]

I'd grab Hans Schmidt's "Photographisches Hilfsbuch".

and...


No, the others are easily replaced. I'd grab the three book-style holders for the 24x30cm camera, and try to pass them off as "books".

[Martin Courtenay-Blake]

Currently I'd make a grab for...

Barry Thornton - Edge of Darkness
Brett Weston - Voyage of the Eye
Thomas Joshua Cooper - Between Dark and Dark
Thomas Joshua Cooper - Dreaming the Gokstad

Next weeks selection would probably have a change or two

Martin

[Michael Alpert]

Kirk,

With Charis Wilson's book on Edward Weston in mind, I know Ben Maddow's book would not be on my list. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I would dither in front of the flames. I adore the whole history of the medium. I really do not want to make choices, even hypothetically, when photography's treasure-house has so many great rooms.

[Leonard Metcalf]

All my PETER DOMBROVSKIS books... I think I only have four...

[roteague]

All my PETER DOMBROVSKIS books... I think I only have four...

Peter was a legend. Good thing you still have his books.

[Pat Kearns]

After grabbing my notebooks containing my negatives, the photo books would be:
The Great Warriors by Edward S. Curtis
The American Wilderness by Ansel Adams
The Man Who Shot Garbo, The Hollywood Photographs of Clarence Sinclair Bull
Karsh: A Sixty Year Retrospective