For The Love of (Photo)Books

Photography Books

2009 has been a great year for photography related books in all their forms. My own reading and viewing this year has seen me with lifetime retrospectives, inspirational essays, business practice guides, eBooks and technical and tutorial styled works. As I turned my thoughts to a year-end summary of all the books that have passed through my hands, I came across an interesting little exercise in crowd sourcing and open discussing by Miki Johnson on the Resolve blog at Livebooks and Andy Adams at Flak Photo both inspired by Joerg Colberg’s Thoughts on Photobooks post. They want to discuss what photobooks will look like in 10 years. Continue reading after the jump for my thoughts on this, as well as my reading list from the past 12 months.

Before we get into the books, a little shameless self promotion. A couple of weeks ago I asked for your thoughts on creativity in a post called Turning Tides of Creativity – Back to the Soul of Photography. One commenter will be chosen from this and will win a copy of Steve Pressfield’s inspirational book The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles as well as a copy of my 2010 calendar Renegade Beauty | Taiwan 2010. The winner will be announced in the next few days, so get in while you still have time.

In order to talk about the future of photobooks, we should look to 2009 where I believe we got some clues as to the way things are going. Amazon’s Kindle may have changed the face of publishing for the immediate future. Specific to the field of photography, we also saw a number of new eBooks released, in particular David DuChemin’s Craft and Vision initiative that has so far seen 5 excellent editions released and 2 tutorial eBooks released by Australian travel photographer Mitchell Kaneshkevich. As the next decade unfolds, I believe we’re going to see an increasing move to electronic formats for the publishing of photobooks, particularly as new and improved Kindles and the like come to the marketplace.

In one sense this is quite an exciting prospect. Just think of the changes in the internet since 1999 or even cameras and editing software over the past few years. Now try and project the eBook and Kindle phenomenon of today forward 10 years. The possibilities are endless.

A part of me however is a little worried. As someone who was first exposed to computers by way of Apple II and Commodore 64’s in the 1980s, through to first learning the basics of HTML in the mid 1990s, and now living in one of the most connected, high-tech countries on the planet, I’m no stranger to technological advances and innovation. But I am someone who loves books, having learned to read prior to starting school and almost always having a book of some kind close to hand. I look at the traditional media industries and the troubles they are having in the move to an online world, with newspaper and magazine circulations dropping almost by the week, and worry that it might be the turn of books next. And that would be a shame.

There’s something inherently satisfying about a physical book. As much as I have embraced the new, social media world, I still cherish the time I can spend with books. I’m not really sure what the state of photobooks will be like in 2019, but whatever it is, when the time comes we’ll probably wonder how we ever lived without it.

So with that said, here is my photography reading list for the past twelve months. Not all of these books were released in 2009, but that was when I received and read them. I’ll present them in the order I got them. If you have any other recommendations, drop me a note in the comments.

Joe McNally – The Moment It Clicks I actually got this in 2008 but didn’t really get a chance to read it properly until 2009. I really like all the little back stories in this. I’ve heard a few reviewers say that there should have been more detailed tips in it so they could reproduce the shots themselves but I personally have no interest in copying someone else’ creative ideas, so the way this book is put together is perfect.

Annie Leibovitz at Work. Annie Leibovitz needs no introduction and reading her thoughts and ideas about some of her most well known work make this highly recommended.

ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography, 7th Edition This put is a must have for the shelf of any professional or aspiring professional photographer. Business skills are weak points for many creatives and this book should be required reading for everyone.

Joe McNally – The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes Another book from Joe McNally, this gives an incredible amount of information on lighting solutions and the use of hotshoe flashes.

David duChemin – Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision David has already had a mention in this post for his eBook series but this book came first. The first volume in what he says will be a series of three, Within The Frame talks about vision, why you need it and how to start the journey towards finding it.

Chris Orwig – Visual Poetry Creating poetry with photographs. Chris’s insights, and ideas are inspiring and the photographs are world class. There are also interviews with a number of well known photographers.

Scott Kelby – The Digital Photography Book, Volume 3. I received this book due to being leader of one of the Photowalks back in July and haven’t really had a chance to properly go through it. I have flicked through it though, and am familiar with some of Scott’s other works, so have no reason to believe that this won’t be as good as the everything else.

Selina Maitreya – How to Succeed in Commercial Photography. This was actually published in 2007 but I didn’t pick up a copy until a few months ago. This book is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read. I found new ideas and seeds of ideas popping into my head almost every page, some of which were completely unrelated to what I was reading at the time. It was like I’d open the book, and it would open my mind to infinite creative possibilities. This is a must read book.

Peter Krogh – The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers Another must have book for the professional and aspiring pro. Solid asset management strategies are essential in the digital age and this book is the book on this field.

John Harrington – Best Business Practices for Photographers, Second Edition. The updated second edition of this book came out in late September and it’s another book that belongs on the shelf of every working photographer. An essential reference to the business of photography.

David duChemin – VisionMongers: Making a Life and a Living in Photography. The second of David duChemin’s books to be released in 2009 and this one builds on his first. Excellent writing, practical advice and great images all combine in this book about making a life in photography.

So there we have it. What photography books exciting you these past twelve months? Did I leave out any good ones? Let me know in the comments and feel free to share this post with your friends and social media buddies.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 13th, 2009 at 12:03 am and is filed under Musings and tagged with photobooks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.