A photo book is the most revolutionary birthday gift we can give today. A written and printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together and bound in covers is the best cure against the fleeting, ephemeral, frugal, web fruition we're used to experiencing today.
Books are something magic, they can change perspectives, they permit you to absorb and develop views.
In my experience, I can clearly say that if you buy a book, your aesthetic will change thanks to it. Since I bought Minutes to midnight (Trent Parke) my photographs have become more rough and raw, thanks to Erwitt I started implementing some ironic and sarcastic elements in my pics, with A City of a Hundred Names (Alex Webb) I decided to move to Istanbul, ad so I've done.
Since my birthday will be soon (October 31st - yes, I was born on Halloween), I decided to create a wishlist on Amazon with these twelve books. If you want to contribute to my work and see how it will change thanks to a new book it's your time: click on this link, choose a book, purchase it and I'll receive it in no time :) If you want to make a gift to a photographer buy one of these books and you don't make mistakes.
William Eggleston's Guide
William Eggleston, John Szarkowski
A collection of forty-eight photographs taken between 1969 and 1971 depicting people and places around the photographer's hometown of Memphis. Everybody should study more Eggleston, his uses of colours and composition are fundamental for a good photographer.
The Americans
Robert Frank, Jack Kerouac
Armed with a camera and a fresh cache of film and bankrolled by a Guggenheim Foundation grant, Robert Frank crisscrossed the United States during 1955 and 1956. The photographs he brought back form a portrait of the country at the time and hint at its future. He saw the hope of the future in the faces of a couple at city hall in Reno, Nevada, and the despair of the present in a grimy roofscape. He saw the roiling racial tension, glamour, and beauty, and, perhaps because Frank himself was on the road, he was particularly attuned to Americans' love for cars. Funeral-goers lean against a shiny sedan, lovers kiss on a beach blanket in front of their parked car, young boys perch in the back seat at a drive-in movie. A sports car under a drop cloth is framed by two California palm trees; on the next page, a blanket is draped over a car accident victim's body in Arizona. (I've linked the Italian version because it's cheaper than the English one)
Colin Westerbeck, Joel Meyerowitz
In this book, the authors explore and discuss the development of one of the most interesting and dynamic of photographic genres. Hailed as a landmark work when it was first published in 1994, Bystander is widely regarded by street photographers as the "bible" of street photography. It covers an incredible array of talent, from the unknowns of the late 19th century to the acknowledged masters of the 20th, such as Atget, Stieglitz, Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Kertesz, Frank, Arbus, Winogrand, and Levitt to name just a few. In this new and fully revised edition, the story of street photography is brought up to date with a re-evaluation of some historical material, the inclusion of more contemporary photographers, and a discussion of the ongoing rise of digital photography.
Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand (14 January 1928 – 19 March 1984) was an American street photographer from the Bronx, New York, known for his portrayal of U.S. life and its social issues, in the mid-20th century. Though he photographed in California, Texas and elsewhere, Winogrand was essentially a New York photographer. I love him, especially for compositions. (I've linked the Spanish version because it's cheaper than the English one)
Kodachrome
Luigi Ghirri
Luigi Ghirri was an Italian artist and photographer who gained a far-reaching reputation as a pioneer and master of contemporary photography, with particular reference to its relationship between fiction and reality. Ghirri has been the subject of numerous books, but this is of his most important one.
Exiles
Josef Koudelka, Czeslaw Milosz, Robert Delpire
About Exiles, Cornell Capa once wrote, Koudelka's unsentimental, stark, brooding, intensely human imagery reflect his spirit, the very essence of an exile who is at home wherever his wandering body finds haven in the night. In this newly revised and expanded edition of the 1988 classic, which includes ten new images, Koudelka's work once more forms a powerful document of the spiritual and physical state of exile. The sense of private mystery that fills these photographs mostly taken during Koudelka's many years of wandering through Europe since leaving his native Czechoslovakia in 1968speaks of passion and reserve, of his rage to see. Solitary, moving, deeply felt, and strangely disturbing, the images in Exiles suggest alienation, disconnection, and love. Exiles, edited and sequenced by Koudelka and Robert Delpire, evokes some of the most compelling and troubling themes of the twentieth century while resonating with equal force in this current moment of profound migrations and transience. This edition also includes a new text by Robert Delpire and Josef Kudelka.
Survey
Stephen Shore
Stephen Shore has had a significant influence on multiple generations of artists and photographers. Even for the youngest photographers working today, his work remains an ongoing and indisputable reference point. Stephen Shore: Survey includes over 250 images that span Shore's impressive and productive career. The images range from 1969 to 2013, with series such as Early Works, Amarillo, New York City, American Surfaces and Uncommon Places, among others. Stephen Shore: Survey elucidates Shore's contributions, as well as the historiographical interpretations of his work that have influenced photographic culture over the past four decades. The narrative of the catalogue is conceptualized around three particularly revealing aspects of Shore's work, including his analysis of photographic and visual language, his topographical approach to the contemporary landscape and his significant use of colour within a photographic context. The images are accompanied by an interview between David Campany and Shore, as well as texts by Sandra S. Phillips, Marta Dahó and Horacio Fernández. Published for his first-ever retrospective exhibition, this essential catalogue also features a complete bibliography and chronology.
Early Color
Saul Leiter, Martin Harrison
Although Edward Steichen exhibited some of Saul Leiter's colour photographs at The Museum of Modern Art in 1953, for 40 years afterwards they remained virtually unknown to the art world. Saul Leiter: Early Color provides the first opportunity to see a comprehensive presentation of images by one of photography's great originals. Leiter moved to New York in 1946 intending to be a painter, but through his friendship with the Abstract Expressionist Richard Pousette-Dart, he quickly recognized the creative potential of photography. Though he continued to paint, exhibiting alongside Philip Guston and Willem de Kooning, Leiter's camera became--like an extension of his arm and mind--an ever-present interpreter of life in the metropolis. He sought out moments of quiet humanity in the Manhattan maelstrom, forging a unique urban pastoral from the most unlikely of circumstances. The lyricism and intensity of his vision come into fullest play in his eloquent handling of colour unequalled by his contemporaries. Leiter's visual language of fragmentation, ambiguity and contingency is evoked by these 100 subtle, painterly images that stretched the boundaries of photography in the second half of the twentieth century.
The nature of Photographs
Stephen Shore
The Nature of Photographs is an essential primer of how to look at and understand photographs, by one of the world's most influential photographers, Stephen Shore.
Where I Find Myself: A Lifetime Retrospective
Where I Find Myself is the first major single book retrospective of one of America's leading photographers. It is organized in inverse chronological order and spans the photographer's whole career to date: from Joel Meyerowitz's most recent picture back to the first photograph he ever took. The book covers all of Joel Meyerowitz's great projects: his work inspired by the artist Morandi, his work on trees, his exclusive coverage of Ground Zero, his trips in the footsteps of Robert Frank across the US, his experiments comparing color and black and white pictures, and of course his iconic street photography work. Joel Meyerowitz is incredibly eloquent and candid about how photography works or doesn't, and this should be an inspiration to anyone interested in photography.
The Suffering of Light
Alex Webb, Geoff Dyer
"The Suffering of Light" is the first comprehensive monograph charting the career of acclaimed American photographer Alex Webb. Gathering some of his most iconic images, many of which were taken in the far corners of the earth, this exquisite book brings a fresh perspective to his extensive catalogue. Recognized as a pioneer of American colour photography since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense colour and light.
Encerrados: 10 years, 74 prisons
Valerio Bispuri
Encerrados is a long voyage lasted ten years, through 74 prisons across all the Latin American countries; a journey born from the desire to recount a continent through prisoners’ world. Prisons are a reflection of society, a mirror of what is happening in a country, from small dramas to the great social and economic crises.
Purchasing one of these books for me you will be part of my journey, helping me to create my path. Every book I'll receive will be deeply studied and reviewed on this blog.
