Earlier this morning: The turkey is in the oven, so I'm squeezing in a bit of PDML time here, but I have been thinking about Bob W's question. Despite all the books in the house, I really don't have a nice comprehensive collection of photography books like many of you good folks do. But there have been a few books that mark key moments in my photographic apprenticeship.
A few years ago, I stayed up all night going page by page in National Geographic's Greatest Portraits In Focus book. After that night, I knew that people and the activity of people would be my favorite subject. What people do greatly interests me. I think I knew this all along, but that night with NAT GEO clinched it. Yet, I'm not sure this would be the desert island book, as our Doug Brewer, called it. Harry Benson's book People was also a big photo book moment--it reminded me of the quality of play people have in the things they do. some of the portraits I find are a bit forced with respect to expression, but still there's a playful quality to Benson's eye that I really love. Gordon Parks' book--which I forget the name--the book is at work, so I can't note the title,--was also a big book moment. Gosh his stuff is great, and I need to look at that book more often. Later in the late evening: WELL, THE TURKEY WAS IN THE OVEN EARLIER TODAY!!! Our entire neighborhood had a power outage. We dashed off to my parent's house with a half cooked bird, finished up roasting it there, then ate. Turned out to be a nice day anyway. Lights are back on. Anyway, Parks' book--great stuff. I have the Expanded Edition (500+ pages) of the previously mentioned Robert Frank's work The Americans. I do look at it frequently for inspiration--so it's up there, but so are two other books: The great Life Photographers and Magnum Stories, and if I had to choose, it might be between these two books--with me leaning towards The Great LIFE Photographers--wider range of subject material and nice short essays on the photographers. Magnum Stories has the advantage of commentary written by the photographers on their own work, but the subject of much of the photographs is conflict photography, while The Great LIFE Photographers has a better mix of the feature, general et al photojournalism. If alone on a desert island, I don't think I'd want to be stuck with a book nearly full of conflict photography. It would depress me. So, I think I'll pick The Great LIFE Photographers. And a little side story that I'd just like to share: Everyone knows that my house is primarily a library, and that my husband's business is books. He had a quite famous used book shop here in Chicago for 25 years, but it suffered with all the other used books shops when the field tanked with the emergence of the internet. When we were dating, I once asked him, if the house was on fire, what book would he take. He thought about it for a few seconds, then said, "I'd take the book I was reading." Cheers, Christine On Nov 19, 2011, at 10:03 AM, Bob W wrote: > So. > > I am going to get rid of as many books as I think I can*, to make some room > in my head. If you had to live with only one photography book from those you > now own (this means your answer cannot be "The Decisive Moment"), which > would it be, and why? > > *In reality, this may mean that I keep maybe one shelf of photo books, > principally signed 1st editions by Magnum photographers and similar greats. > > B > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
