Hitlist Photo Books 2006
It's exactly a year since I started this blog. Sixty posts: that makes just over 1 post per week. I don't think I will be able to squeeze out much more next year. But it's been great fun and I look forward to continuing. It definitely is an incentive to sharpen the thinking from time to time.
Today I would like to contribute my short list of favourite photo books for this year. My library is growing very fast. Most of the books I buy are new releases but I keep always an eye on the photography section in second hand bookshops too. Amazon and Photoeye are my key suppliers. In addition I have purchased a couple of collector's items via abebooks.co.uk, notably "Wales: Reconnaissance" and "Periplanoussis", both by Koudelka. (By the way, with the publication of Parr and Badger's "The Photo Book: A History" - volume II has just been released by Phaidon - as a shopping list for lazy collectors it has suddenly become much more difficult to find many of the classic photo books).
There are always a small number of volumes that stand out. This year I would single out just four:
Instant Light - Andrei Tarkovsky Polaroids (Thames & Hudson)
A wonderful little book with an enchanting series of colour polaroids taken in Russia and Italy (in exile) by the famous Russian film director ("Solaris", "Stalker"). Again proof that diminutive size is absolutely no barrier to refined aesthetic pleasures in photography (perhaps to the contrary!).
Paesaggi Verticali - Vittorio Sella 1879-1943 (GAM, Torino)
Beautifully printed catalogue accompanying an exhibition in the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Torino. It provides a comprehensive overview of Sella's career as a mountain photographer. I was able to secure this volume thanks to my Italian teacher, who lives in Torino and was so kind to buy it for me and send it over.
Ken and Melanie Light: Coal Hollow - Photographs and Oral Histories (University of California Press)
Classic, very accomplished black and white photography in the social documentary vein. Ken Light portrayed a US industrial region in decline whilst his wife took down testimonies and oral histories. Altogether it is a very bleak picture that emerges from these pages. Judging from the reviews at amazon.com not everybody seems to think this is an unbiased view. See also the interesting website of the authors.
Araki
I received this copy of a Japanese photo magazine as a gift from my German friend-photographer Marko Hehl. It looks like a special issue devoted to the (in)famous Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi. I knew Araki only superficially as an "agent provocateur", but this collection of wonderfully sensitive b&w photographs of his wife, including her struggle with illness and death, opens a whole new perspective on this artist. Remarkable. Thank you, Marko!
Today I would like to contribute my short list of favourite photo books for this year. My library is growing very fast. Most of the books I buy are new releases but I keep always an eye on the photography section in second hand bookshops too. Amazon and Photoeye are my key suppliers. In addition I have purchased a couple of collector's items via abebooks.co.uk, notably "Wales: Reconnaissance" and "Periplanoussis", both by Koudelka. (By the way, with the publication of Parr and Badger's "The Photo Book: A History" - volume II has just been released by Phaidon - as a shopping list for lazy collectors it has suddenly become much more difficult to find many of the classic photo books).
There are always a small number of volumes that stand out. This year I would single out just four:
Instant Light - Andrei Tarkovsky Polaroids (Thames & Hudson)A wonderful little book with an enchanting series of colour polaroids taken in Russia and Italy (in exile) by the famous Russian film director ("Solaris", "Stalker"). Again proof that diminutive size is absolutely no barrier to refined aesthetic pleasures in photography (perhaps to the contrary!).
Paesaggi Verticali - Vittorio Sella 1879-1943 (GAM, Torino)
Beautifully printed catalogue accompanying an exhibition in the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Torino. It provides a comprehensive overview of Sella's career as a mountain photographer. I was able to secure this volume thanks to my Italian teacher, who lives in Torino and was so kind to buy it for me and send it over.
Ken and Melanie Light: Coal Hollow - Photographs and Oral Histories (University of California Press)
Classic, very accomplished black and white photography in the social documentary vein. Ken Light portrayed a US industrial region in decline whilst his wife took down testimonies and oral histories. Altogether it is a very bleak picture that emerges from these pages. Judging from the reviews at amazon.com not everybody seems to think this is an unbiased view. See also the interesting website of the authors.
Araki I received this copy of a Japanese photo magazine as a gift from my German friend-photographer Marko Hehl. It looks like a special issue devoted to the (in)famous Japanese photographer Araki Nobuyoshi. I knew Araki only superficially as an "agent provocateur", but this collection of wonderfully sensitive b&w photographs of his wife, including her struggle with illness and death, opens a whole new perspective on this artist. Remarkable. Thank you, Marko!
posted by Philippe at
8:05 PM
3 Comments:
No problem Philippe. It was the same way like you as i see the first pictures from Araki. A provocative nude photographer. But as i make a deeper look on Araki i found his Streetshots along with Moriyama and i see the pictures of his first book about his weeding travel with his wife (same pictures are in the magazine) and i learn about the death of his wife. A fatal blow for him!
Now i have his complete work Photobook Self - Life - Death and the DVD about him "Arakimentari" at home. I think, its a must have for a photographer.
By
Marko, at 7:18 PM
I have also a photobook recommendation for you. Take a look to Donata Wenders - Islands of Silence. A wonderful, quiet book full of very soul touching pictures.
By
Marko, at 7:56 PM
Thanks for the recommendation, Marko. I'll certainly look it up.
By
Philippe, at 12:08 AM
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