Your Favorite Photography Book (non-educational)

[Shailendra]

I recently purchased Ray McSaveney's Explorations book and must say I was impressed. Very inspiring artistically, especially the Walking Tree's. Though I still love my Ansel Adams and Edward Westons books, McSavaneys' Explorations has become now my faovite.

This got me to thinking what are your favorite Photography books?

[Brian Ellis]

Ray's book is my favorite too. Ray is underrated as a photographer and underrated as an author as well. I thought the writing added a lot and made the book much more interesting than the more usual book of photographs. A close second for me is John Szarkowski's "Looking at Photographs." A close third is anything else by Szarkowski.

[brian reed]

I like John Sextons book Recollections, and William Neill's book Landscape Of The Spirit
BR

[Harley Goldman]

I like John Sexton's Recollections and Listen to the Trees.

[roteague]

Jack Dykinga's "Arizona" or "Desert: The Mojave and Death Valley"

[Norm Buchanan]

Jack Dykinga - Stone Canyons of the Colorado Plateau or Ansel Adams - The Making of 40 Photographs.

[Bill_1856]

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

[David Karp]

I recently purchased Ray McSaveney's Explorations book and must say I was impressed. Very inspiring artistically, especially the Walking Tree's. Though I still love my Ansel Adams and Edward Westons books, McSavaneys' Explorations has become now my faovite.

This got me to thinking what are your favorite Photography books?

I agree. It is just a fantastic book.

If you get the chance to see his work in person you will be even more impressed.

[ageorge]

Difficult choice, but if I survey all my books and had to only choose one, it would be American Prospects, Joel Sternfeld. Steild knows how to make a book. Soth's Niagra was close second, also published by Steild. But then there is Hido, stop it, your made your choice, Sternfeld, yes, Sternfeld it is.

American Prospects, Joel Sternfeld (http://www.steidlville.com/books/87-American-Prospects.html)

[Frank Petronio]

The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre

http://www.curledup.com/mercuryv.htm

tip o the hat to Don Nelson for that one

[Mark Sampson]

Hmmm- looks good, Frank.
My choice might be Strand's 'Tir a Mhurain".

[Scott Davis]

I read Mercury Visions; it's a good bit of historical fiction. I think my favorite book though has to be Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfall, by John Dugdale. That, and Kenro Izu's Passage to Angkor.

[paulr]

Robert Frank, The Americans

[Walter Foscari]

The 4 volumes of "The Work of Atget" by Szarkowski and Hambourg. If only one allowed then I would have to pick volume 3 "The Ancien Regime".

[Michael Graves]

Wright Morris. Photographs and Words. Amazing photographs are accompanied by his story of being on the road to make the images.

[darr]

Oh this is difficult on one level, but easy on another ...

William Clift, Certain Places

[paulr]

The 4 volumes of "The Work of Atget" by Szarkowski and Hambourg.

that would be a good desert island selection. i'd be happy flipping through those pages for years.

[Mike Lopez]

Lee Friedlander's first book of self-portraits. Or maybe the 2005 MoMA retrospective on him.

[Peter Lewin]

It would be close between Clift's "Certain Places" (which Darr already picked) and Paul Caponigro's "The Wise Silence" (which I'll make my pick). But if I'm feeling a bit controversial, I might pick Sally Mann's "Immediate Family" because it moves LF out of its comfortable niche of landscapes and still life. (Actually I'm spending a lot of time right now looking at her "Deep South" which is all wet plate and antique, sometimes damaged, lenses to add interest to what would otherwise be mundane landscapes.)

[AF-ULF]

Wright Morris, "The Home Place."

[tim atherton]

Hmm - almost impossible to say

1. I'd have to say John Gossage's Berlin in the Time of the Wall (or possibly the quieter Romance Industry). Never tire of them

But if this was Desert Island Discs, I'd also probably have to go for the MoMA 4 vol Atget set (the Mozart of photography as I just heard described on the Genius of Photography) - some of the most luscious printing of any photography book for one thing

or American Photographs - probably the best (and most important) single book of photographs of the 20th Century :-)

[P. Yee]

I don't have an all time favorite book. Currently, the book I considered the most fascinating for me is Robert Adams' "Listening to the River".

[Jim Jones]

I'm rereading Through Another Lens by Charis Wilson. No Weston fan's library is complete without it. The new video, The Eloquent Nude, adds icing to Charis' cake.

[Bruce Watson]

Eliot Porter's self titled book from an amazing retrospective at the Amon Carter Museum that ran the last two months of 1987. Lots of his writing, 128 plates. It includes a few of his early B&W efforts too.

Porter is the "forgotten master."

[Joseph Kayne]

Eliot Porter's Glen Canyon....
Joel Meyerowitz's Cape Light

[paulr]

For me there's a difference between books that happen to have a lot of pictures that I like, and books that are great examples of visual bookmaking ... ones that through their design, editing, sequencing, and printing, constitute a work of art that's much greater than the sum of its parts.

That's why I picked Frank's The Americans. It's such a mindblowing example of a book as a finished work. I often go back to it to study the sequencing and each time learn something new.

This is different from a book like the huge Friedlander retrospective, or the 4-volume Atget series, which are great simply because they're filled with so much great work. It's the difference between a great book and book that's filled with great work. Plenty of room on my shelves for both, but I get different things from each.

[Mark Sawyer]

"Re: Your Favorite Photography Book (non-educational) "

Non-educational? Definitely "On Photography" by Susan Sontag. No matter how much thought I put into reading it, I never learn a thing...

[Gordon Moat]

Currently viewing a book called Driven: The Racing Photography of Jesse Alexander (http://www.chroniclebooks.com/site/catalog/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=1833&store=books). This is not large format, and definitely before my time, but I find myself greatly interested in what he captured.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Jim Ewins]

How can a good book of photographs or about photography be "non-educational"? Man Ray - oh I didn't say that

[Tim Hyde]

What a great question! Can we list out top five?
1. Sternfeld, American Prospects
2. Shore, Uncommon Places
3. John Gossage, The Pond
4. Frank, The Americans
5. Diado Moriyama, Compete Works
6. David Goldblatt, Particulars

Of course, this list of five will change tomorrow.

[Luca Merlo]

1. Un Paese by Paul Strand
2. Photography and Modernism by E. Weston
3. Photographs & Words by Morris
4. Hana by Ishimoto

Ciao

[Julian Boulter]

George Tice: Urban Landscapes

Julian

http://www.photohome.uku.co.uk/

[Shailendra]

I've seen that book in stores years ago, it was one of the ones that inspired me to take up photography. Excellent book

[Robbie Shymanski]

Taken by Design: Photographs from the Institute of Design, 1937-1971.

Moholy-Nagy. Kepes. Seigel. Siskind. Callahan. Metzker. Nickel. Sinsabaugh. Crane. This is my mixtape of photography!

[jenn wilson]

1. Fotografia Publica: Photographs in Print 1919-1939

2. Carlo Mollino: Polaroids
3. Bill Brandt: Behind the Camera

[stehei]

Richard Avedon: An Autobiography (got me started in photography)
Richard Avedon: In the American West
Irving Penn, Passage
Peter Lindbergh: Images of women

[Aender Brepsom]

Joe Cornish: Scotland's Coast
Joe Cornish: Light and the Art of Landscape Photography
Colin Prior: Highgland Wilderness