[Note from Kat: As I mentioned yesterday, during my visit with Gilly I invited her to do a guest post, telling us about some of her favorite photography books. I’m excited to add a few to my reading list! All of the photography in this post is Gilly’s lovely work.]
This was so difficult! I have a lot of photography books and having to select just a few was tough. I love books with a passion, and I have hundreds of them. After a lot of angst and ‘how can I possibly leave that one out?’ thoughts, I’ve narrowed it down to five (well, six really – I snuck another one in). There are some wonderful books that I decided to leave out because they’re so widely known that you’ll probably already have heard of them, and in the end I thought it would be more interesting to introduce you to some other wonderful books that you might not have heard about before. Here’s my final selection……
Tao of Photography
Don’t mix this one up with the book of the same name by Tom Ang! – Ang’s book (which I also have) is not nearly so good. This one’s for you if you have any interest in Eastern philosophies or how they relate to photography, and how being in the present moment, becoming mindful, and being receptive to whatever presents itself to you, can take your photography to a new level. The emphasis is on encouraging you to see the extraordinary in the ordinary. It’s wonderfully illustrated with classic black and white photographs and interesting quotes. The book itself is in square format, quite large, and as you might expect, rather Zen-like in its layout, with lots of white space and classic design. It’s a beautiful object in itself, with many full-page reproductions of photographs by some of photography’s ‘greats’, often accompanied on the facing page by a relevant quote.
And – sneaking an extra book in here – if you like Tao of Photography
, then you’ll also enjoy The Practice of Contemplative Photography
I’ve read quite a few histories of photography, but they all concentrated on black and white – so much so that you’d think colour hadn’t been invented till very recently! When I saw this one I just had to get a copy – as far as I know there isn’t another book like it. Colour photography actually started a whole lot earlier than I had realised (as early as 1839) and some of these early prints are very lovely. Whether you read it from start to finish, just dip in, or simply look at the pictures, you’ll find something of interest here. It’s copiously illustrated – it’s a big, heavy book with glossy pages and a lot in it. I discovered several photographers I hadn’t heard of before but who have now become favourites, and learned a lot about the difficulties of colour photography in its early days. It was also interesting to see how the colours changed over the years, either because of technical issues or fashion – the soft pastels of the early days, the garish brights of the 1950s, the rich, vibrant, but more subtle colours of photographers like Ernst Haas in the sixties, and beyond.
The Elements of Photography
This book might not be for everyone and I’ve included it as a bit of a wild card, but if you’re serious about developing your photography (no pun intended!) then I think you’ll find this really interesting. It’s a beautifully crafted and very readable textbook and because it’s based on a college course given by the author, it’s well structured and each section is followed by exercises. It assumes a basic level of technical knowledge and looks at the creative elements that go to make up a good photograph. The author divides the art of photography into four main elements – framing and borders, aperture and lenses, shutter speed, and materials and processes – and discusses the creative options each one offers. There are loads of student portfolios throughout – a lot of them are quite experimental and they won’t all be to everyone’s taste, but if you keep an open mind you can pull lots of ideas out of them. The author wants to encourage a free-thinking approach to photography and if you’d like to stretch yourself a bit then this could be a great starting point.
The Creative Photographer
If the books above seem a little heavyweight to you, try this one for some light relief. I love this book. It’s fun, it’s inspirational, and a real visual treat in itself being beautifully laid out and illustrated. It’s a mixture of practical projects that will get you thinking about how and what you photograph, and have you taking your photos off your hard drive and transforming them into pieces of art you can hold in your hands. There are three sorts of creative exercises – practices to improve your photography and connect with your inner artist, interesting things you can do with your photos using image-processing software, and ‘art table’ projects that turn your photos into crafted items. I’m not usually much of a crafts person, but even I am tempted to try some of these, especially the hand-made book projects. Lots of the craft projects would make wonderful personalised presents for friends and family, too. It’s a fun, inspiring book that’s full of ideas.
Little People in the City
The idea is simple – take tiny little figures of people (less than an inch high), paint them, position them in urban locations to create a story, and then photograph them with a macro lens. It’s one of those ‘damn, why didn’t I think of that!’ ideas. The resulting images are both funny and touching, and reflect the vulnerability of being a very small person in an overwhelmingly large place – a feeling we can probably all relate to in some way. A toddler with inflatable arm bands swims in the puddle formed on a drainage cover; a father who has just shot a giant bumblebee says to his daughter ‘They’re not pets, Susan’; a man in a suit gazes out over the river and ‘dreams of packing it all in’. Some have a tongue-in-cheek horror element – an image entitled ‘Bad first date’ shows an axe murderer standing over his half-buried victim. Each double-page spread shows you the larger context where the models are placed, alongside the close-up image that tells the story. This is a lovely little book that will almost certainly make you smile, and if you don’t want to buy the book you can see a selection of images on Slinkachu’s website.
So there you have it. I hope you find something here that you’ll enjoy and, if you have a favourite photography book of your own, why not share it with us in the comments section?
Gilly Walker blogs at The Camera Points Both Ways, and if you’re stuck for photographic inspiration, she’s written The Photo Ideas Book – an ebook that will supply you with all the ideas you’ll ever need for your photography.
