Books

Photo books I’ve read or own with summary and my notes for each. Will be updating as I read more.

Sorted by top recommendations.

Book wish list:

Glacier, Ragnar Axelsson
Listen to the Trees, John Sexton
Ansel Adams’ 400 Photographs, The Camera, & The Print, Ansel Adams
Magnum Contact Sheets
Born to Ice, Paul Nicken
Forms of Japan, Michael Kenna
Between The Wind, Ben Horne (on pre-order)

Genesis, Sebastião Salgado 10/10 (ISBN: 3836538725)

Salgado’s love letter to the earth. Where his previous work was occupied with dark themes of humanity, this book tells the human story without focusing solely on people. This book is, quite simply, beautiful. One can’t pick it up without feeling joy at the beauty still present in the world today.

It tells our story by continually looking to the beginning, with stunning images that span a wide breadth of topics from landscape to wildlife and portraiture. Salgado once again demonstrates his natural ability for composition without following any classic ‘rules’. The size and quality Taschen has achieved with this print is commendable. You truly lose yourself in its hundreds of images.

Notes coming soon.

Kamikochi: The Nippon Alps, Shinzo Maeda 10/10 (ISBN: 4766103068)

Review & notes coming soon.

This Land… This Beauty, Shinzo Maeda 10/10 (ISBN: 476610420X)

Review & notes coming soon.

All About Saul Leiter, Saul Leiter 9/10 (ISBN: 9780500294536)

Review & notes coming soon.

Immediate Family, Sally Mann 9/10 (ISBN: 1597112542)

Review & notes coming soon.

The Negative, Ansel Adams 9/10 (ISBN: 9780821221860)

If you have any interest in learning the craft of making images, this book (which sits in the middle of a trio of instructional masterclasses from Adams, including The Camera and The Print) is second to none even by today’s standards. However, don’t expect lush poetic writing. This is a textbook, but a beautiful one at that. It exposes some of the thinkings of one of the great landscape photographers of the 20th century, breaking down his technical skill, camera and exposure techniques, and creative processes.

The book is, of course, focused on the film negative, however the principles Adams’ presents are extremely applicable to any digital photography today. If anything, this book is worth reading simply for the lovely reproductions of Adams’ work and their accompanying captions which tell the story behind the image – think Moonrise, Hernandez.

Notes coming soon.