Must read Photography books

Boid

All-Pro
Location
Bangalore, India
Name
Rajiv
Hi, I was wondering what are your "must reads" on Photography. These are a few that are on my list -


1. Andre Kertesz by Michael Frizot, Annie–laure Wanaverbecq

2. Photography After Frank by Philip Gefter

3. The Pleasures of Good Photographs by Gerry Badger

4. Looking in: Robert Frank's the Americans by Sarah Greenough, Robert Frank, Stuart Alexander

5. Core Curriculum: Writings on Photography by Tod Papageorge

6. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography by Roland Barthes

7. The Photographer's Eye by John Szarkowski

8. Koudelka: Gypsies by Will Guy, Josef Koudelka

9. The Camera: Ansel Adams

10. The Negative: Ansel Adams

11. Real World Color Management (Second Edition) - Fraser, Bruce; Murphy, Chris & Bunting

12. The Hot Shoe Diaries - Big Light from Small Flashes: McNally, Joe

13. Understanding Exposure: Bryan Peterson (nice book to start with)

14. On Photography: Sontag, Susan

15. Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
 
As an instructional book, I'd very much like to recommend a book also called "The Photographer's Eye", by Michael Freeman. It's one of the best sold photography books ever, and for good reason: it goes very far beyond what most instructional books will tell you about image composition. If you're willing to put in the time, both to read and understand the book and to put it into practice, I'm sure pretty much everyone will learn a great deal from this book. I haven't gotten around to reading it properly yet, but I'm very impressed with what I've seen from a few pages.

also, "Storytellers" by Jerod Foster, about telling stories with your images. Lots of text (even more than The Photographer's Eye) but I find it very interesting. If you like your photos to tell a story but it's not coming across as strongly as you'd like, you might want to give it a try.
 
You've got a heavy list there Boid ... be careful it doesn't get in the way of taking photographs!

Agree with bartjeej about Michael Freeman - he could do with a decent editor to tidy up his prose sometimes, but overall his books are excellent.
 
You've got a heavy list there Boid ... be careful it doesn't get in the way of taking photographs!

Agree with bartjeej about Michael Freeman - he could do with a decent editor to tidy up his prose sometimes, but overall his books are excellent.

Well currently I'm reading "Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident" so it all balances out :D
 
As an instructional book, I'd very much like to recommend a book also called "The Photographer's Eye", by Michael Freeman. It's one of the best sold photography books ever, and for good reason: it goes very far beyond what most instructional books will tell you about image composition. If you're willing to put in the time, both to read and understand the book and to put it into practice, I'm sure pretty much everyone will learn a great deal from this book. I haven't gotten around to reading it properly yet, but I'm very impressed with what I've seen from a few pages.

also, "Storytellers" by Jerod Foster, about telling stories with your images. Lots of text (even more than The Photographer's Eye) but I find it very interesting. If you like your photos to tell a story but it's not coming across as strongly as you'd like, you might want to give it a try.

Thanks! I was confused that there were two books with the same name. But usually it's the one by John Szarkowski that gets referred to the most. I'll give the other a gander as well.
 
This is a really fascinating book I read recently:

Amazon.com: Believing Is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography (9781594203015): Errol Morris: Books

I tend to enjoy monographs more. I recently "discovered" this photographer named David Plowden. I was trying to find photographers who took photos in rural areas. I got three monographs by him used (ex library copies are always great). Anyway this one had the best photo quality.

Amazon.com: Imprints: A Retrospective (9780821223239): David Plowden, Alan Trachtenberg: Books

And my new all time favorite (my Christmas present to myself):

Amazon.com: Chromes (9783869303116): William Eggleston: Books
 
Let me reinforce Stanleyk's reference to Believing Is Seeing. This is a fantastic look at the philosophical issues raised by photography. It starts off like a detective story about a particular pair of old photos from the Crimean War. Soon we find ourselves in the middle of the the Abu Ghraib fiasco (and its horrible reflection on the American military), and as a result we find ourselves asking fundamental questions about photography and truth; with a passing reference to Alice in Wonderland. Highly recommended for those who are interested in photography and social issues, as well as photography and cognitive issues of perception about meaning and truth. His conclusions resonant with Socrates/Plato's warning that we cannot trust our senses for ultimate truth. I have been reading a library copy, but this one is to be added to my personal library.
Stanleyk, I will look up the others you suggest. I also am interested in photography in rural areas, since I live in such a place.
 
I tend to enjoy monographs more. I recently "discovered" this photographer named David Plowden. I was trying to find photographers who took photos in rural areas. I got three monographs by him used (ex library copies are always great). Anyway this one had the best photo quality.

Amazon.com: Imprints: A Retrospective (9780821223239): David Plowden, Alan Trachtenberg: Books

Thanks again for the tip on Plowden. I picked up a decent, used copy of Imprints and love his work!

He has some stuff up on his webpage, mostly 70s-90s:
David Plowden
 
I'm not sure it's a "must read" but I've been recently enjoying Gordon Laing's book "In Camera: How to Get Perfect Pictures Straight Out of the Camera".

20220210_150130.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)


As I'm sure you can gather from the title, his focus is on producing JPEGs with little to no post-processing.

The book basically takes a look at around 100 of Laing's images. The photos are set against the EXIF data as well as a brief story discussing what captured his attention, what equipment was used (he shoots with mostly Fuji X and M43 gear), often how he overcame less than "perfect" weather or lighting, and what decisions he made that lead him to produce the final image.

20220210_150315.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)


It makes for an enjoyable and occasionally educational read.

- K

P.S. Plus, it's got an Olympus E-M10 Mark II on the cover, so I consider that a nice little bonus.
 
Last edited:
I would add:

"Photography and the Art of Seeing" by Freeman Patterson

"Scott Kelby's 7 Point System for Adobe Photoshop" (the only one of his books that I recommend)

"The Photograph Composition and Color Design" by Harald Mante

"Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop", Schewe and Fraser

If you really want to get into the nitty gritty:

"Real World Photoshop CS" by Blatner and Fraser

"The Digital Print" by Kurt Martin C. Jürgens
 
Last edited:
I'm not sure it's a "must read" but I've been recently enjoying Gordon Laing's book "In Camera: How to Get Perfect Pictures Straight Out of the Camera".

View attachment 292135

As I'm sure you can gather from the title, his focus is on producing JPEGs with little to no post-processing.

The book basically takes a look at around 100 of Laing's images. The photos are set against the EXIF data as well as a brief story discussing what captured his attention, what equipment was used (he shoots with mostly Fuji X and M43 gear), often how he overcame less than "perfect" weather or lighting, and what decisions he made that lead him to produce the final image.

View attachment 292137

It makes for an enjoyable and occasionally educational read.

- K

P.S. Plus, it's got an Olympus E-M10 Mark II on the cover, so I consider that a nice little bonus.
Nice work dredging up an old thread that should get a lot more attention than it did the first time! This could be a good reference for folks. I'm always looking for books to read on photography, with actually good contents. In my experience they can be hit or miss.

I've got the Gordon Laing book as well. It's not bad, and some of the photos are really good, which makes it nice to see the behind the scenes.

I'd like to recommend Bystander: A History of Street Photography for anyone who's into, well, street photography and history. It is exhaustive, and I do mean that. It's a big hardcover,and it goes back to Atget and further back, really it traces street photography from the beginnings of photography. Lots of good photos, and lots of really well researched information. It's possibly the most impressive job actually writing that I have read on photography.
 
Nice work dredging up an old thread that should get a lot more attention than it did the first time!
Thanks, Andrew.

I actually spent a little bit of time searching for relevant thread. When I failed and gave up, I started a replyin What books are you reading for pleasure these days?. In doing so, the forum's "Similar threads" feature surfaced this thread. While I understand that sometimes it's not a great practice to dredge up an old thread (i.e. necro-posting), but in this case I decided that this initial thread may not have gotten enough eyeballs.

Good rec, I'll have to check that book out, even though I'm not much into "street photography". I hadn't really taken narrative much into account when considering "photography books", I mostly tend toward the picture book or tutorial variety.

- K
 
I hadn't really taken narrative much into account when considering "photography books", I mostly tend toward the picture book or tutorial variety.
I don't know if it's narrative, necessarily, that I'm looking for, but just good, meaty writing. There are lots of wordy books published by Aperture, but they are often so abstruse that I can't get into them. I feel like they follow some rarified track where there are only THE photographers, the few that moved the needle, and the subject of more mainstream photography is just ignored for the most part. I like reading about famous photographers, who were often part of exclusive circles, but I like finding things that apply to me, too.

I want more of those kinds of books so much that I'm trying to write one myself, though it has been so far a somewhat fruitless venture. Too few examples of what I'm looking for.
 
Back
Top