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A Shimmer of Possibility by Paul Graham


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Niagara


Alec Soth - 2006
    And as with his photographs of the Mississippi, these images are less about natural wonder than human desire. "I went to Niagara for the same reason as the honeymooners and suicide jumpers," says Soth, "the relentless thunder of the Falls just calls for big passion." The subject may be hot, but the pictures are quiet, the rigorously composed and richly detailed products of a large-format 8x10 camera. Working over the course of two years on both the American and Canadian sides of the Falls, Soth edited the results of his labors down to a tight and surprising album. He depicts newlyweds and naked lovers, motel parking lots, pawnshop wedding rings and love letters from the subjects he photographed. We read about teenage crushes, workplace affairs, heartbreak and suicide. Oscar Wilde wrote, "The sight of the stupendous waterfall must be one of the earliest, if not the keenest, disappointments in American married life." Niagara brings viewers both the passion and the disappointment--a remarkable portrayal of modern love and its aftermath.

The Last Resort


Martin Parr - 1998
    Martin Parr is Europe's premier contemporary photographer, and The Last Resort is the book that is considered to have launched his career. Taken at the height of the Thatcher years, it depicts the "great British seaside" in all its garish glory. Described by some as cruel and voyeuristic and by others as a stunning satire on the state of Britain, early editions are now much sought after by collectors worldwide. Includes a new essay by Gerry Badger, photographer, architect, curator, and critic.

The Bikeriders


Danny Lyon - 1997
    A seminal work of modern photojournalism, this landmark collection of photographs and interviews documents the abandon and risk implied in the name of the gang Lyon belonged to: the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. With images and interviews that are as raw, alive, and dramatic today as they were three decades ago, this new edition includes startling new images: 15 additional black-and-white photographs and 14 color prints--long thought missing--of works originally published in black-and-white. With a new introduction by the author, The Bikeriders rides again, capturing like never before the dawn of the counterculture era.

Winogrand: Figments from the Real World


Garry Winogrand - 1988
    Grouped under the following titles-- Eisenhower Years, The Street, Women, The Zoo, On the Road, The Sixties, Etc, The Fort Worth Fat Stock Show and Rodeo, Airport and Unfinished Work-- many of the 179 plates are works that had never before been published. The last section includes 25 pictures chosen from the enormous body of work that Winogrand left unedited at the time of his death in 1984. In his essay, Szarkowski, who knew the photographer well during most of his career, describes the development of Winogrand's pictorial strategies during his years as a photojournalist, the increasing complexity of his motifs as he pursued more personal goals, and the challenge posed for other photographers by the powerful and distinctive authority of Winogrand's best work, "with its manic sense of a life balanced somewhere between animal high spirits and an apprehension of moral disaster."

Weegee's World


Miles Barth - 2000
    It captures bygone New York at its most raucous, dangerous, and outrageous. Grisly murders, tragic accidents, gawking crowds, along with intimate human-interest and high-society images, are all captured by Weegee's flash. Interpretive essays, an annotated chronology, bibliography, filmography, and a list of exhibitions complete this comprehensive volume.

Ren Hang


Ren Hang - 2017
    Slight of build, shy by nature, prone to fits of depression, the 28-year-old Beijing photographer was nonetheless at the forefront of Chinese artists' battle for creative freedom. Like his champion Ai Weiwei, Ren was controversial in his homeland and wildly popular in the rest of the world. He said, -I don't really view my work as taboo, because I don't think so much in cultural context, or political context. I don't intentionally push boundaries, I just do what I do.- Why? Because his models, friends, and increasingly, fans, are naked, often outdoors, high in the trees or on the terrifyingly vertiginous rooftops of Beijing, stacked like building blocks, heads wrapped in octopi, body cavities sprouting phone cords and flowers, whatever enters his mind at the moment. He denies his intentions are sexual, and there is a clean detachment about even his most extreme images: the urine, the insertions, the many, many erections. In a 2013 interview VICE magazine asked, -there are a lot of dicks ... do you just like dicks?- Ren responded, -It's not just dicks I'm interested in, I like to portray every organ in a fresh, vivid and emotional way.- True though that may be, the penises Ren photographed are not just fresh and vivid, but unusually large, making one wonder just where he met his friends. In the same piece, Hang also stated, -Gender isn't important when I'm taking pictures, it only matters to me when I'm having sex, - making him a pioneer of gender inclusiveness. Young fans still eagerly flock to his website, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts. His photographs, all produced on film, have been the subject of over 20 solo and 70 group shows in his brief six-year career, in cities as disparate as Tokyo, Athens, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Vienna, and yes, even Beijing. He self-published 16 monographs, in tiny print runs, that now sell for up to $600. TASCHEN's Ren Hang is his only international collection, covering his entire career, with well-loved favorites and many never-before-seen photos of men, women, Beijing, and those many, many erections. We take solace remembering Ren's joy when he first held the book, shared by his long-time partner Jiaqi, featured on the cover.Text in English, French, and German

House of Coates


Brad Zellar - 2012
    Society may label them bums, homeless, or pariahs, but Zellar's empathetic writing allows the reader to get inside one broken man, and therefore all."—Jim Walsh, MinnPostWashed up in the shadow of a refinery, Lester B. Morrison, legendary recluse, documents his life in a series of photographs taken with a disposable camera. In a landscape of off ramps, warehouses, and SRO hotels occupied by terminally lonely men, love and faith break in, quietly offering human connection and the possibility of redemption.Brad Zellar has worked as a writer and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, as well as for both regional and national magazines. He is the author of Suburban World: The Norling Photos, The 1968 Project, Conductors of the Moving World, and House of Coates.Alec Soth is a photographer whose first monograph, Sleeping by the Mississippi, was published by Steidl in 2004. Since then Soth has published over a dozen books including Niagara (2006), Dog Days, Bogotá (2007), The Last Days of W (2008), and Broken Manual (2010). Soth's work has been exhibited at Jeu de Paume in Paris and Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland.

Illuminance


Rinko Kawauchi - 2011
    In the years that followed, she published other notable monographs, including "Aila" (2004), "The Eyes, the Ear" (2005) and "Semear" (2007). And now, ten years after her precipitous entry onto the international stage, Aperture has published "Illuminance," the latest volume of Kawauchi's work and the first to be published outside of Japan. Kawauchi's photography has frequently been lauded for its nuanced palette and offhand compositional mastery, as well as its ability to incite wonder via careful attention to tiny gestures and the incidental details of her everyday environment. As Sean O'Hagan, writing in "The Guardian" in 2006, noted, "there is always some glimmer of hope and humanity, some sense of wonder at work in the rendering of the intimate and fragile." In "Illuminance," Kawauchi continues her exploration of the extraordinary in the mundane, drawn to the fundamental cycles of life and the seemingly inadvertent, fractal-like organization of the natural world into formal patterns. Gorgeously produced as a clothbound volume with Japanese binding, this impressive compilation of previously unpublished images is proof of Kawauchi's unique sensibility and her ongoing appeal to lovers of photography.

Self Portrait


Lee Friedlander - 1992
    Here Friedlander focuses on the role of his own physical presence in his images. He writes: "At first, my presence in my photos was fascinating and disturbing. But as time passed and I was more a part of other ideas in my photos, I was able to add a giggle to those feelings." Here readers can witness this progression as Friedlander appears in the form of his shadow, or reflected in windows and mirrors, and only occasionally fully visible through his own camera. In some photos he visibly struggles with the notion of self-portraiture, desultorily shooting himself in household mirrors and other reflective surfaces. Soon, though, he begins to toy with the pictures, almost teasingly inserting his shadow into them to amusing and provocative effect--elongated and trailing a group of women seen only from the knees down; cast and bent over a chair as if seated in it; mirroring the silhouette of someone walking down the street ahead of him; or falling on the desert ground, a large bush standing in for hair. These uncanny self-portraits evoke a surprisingly full landscape of the artist's life and mind. This reprint edition of Lee Friedlander: Self Portrait contains nearly 50 duotone images and an afterword by John Szarkowski, former Director of the Department of Photography at The Museum of Modern Art.

Larry Fink on Composition and Improvisation: The Photography Workshop Series


Larry Fink - 2014
    Its goal is to inspire photographers of all levels who wish to improve their work, as well as readers interested in deepening their understanding of the art of photography. Each volume is introduced by a well-known student of the featured photographer. In this book, Larry Fink--well-known for his layered pictures in social settings--explores composing photographs and improvising within a scene to create images with both feeling and meaning. Through words and photographs, he reveals insight into his own practice and discusses a wide range of creative issues, from connecting with the subject in front of the lens to shaping a vision that is authentic. Photographer Lisa Kereszi, a student of Larry Fink, provides the introduction.Larry Fink (born 1941) has been a professor at Yale University School of Art; Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture; Parsons the New School for Design; and Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Currently, he is a tenured professor of photography at Bard College. His work has been widely exhibited in the United States, including solo exhibitions at Light Gallery, New York; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.Lisa Kereszi is a photographer and educator. She is now the director of undergraduate studies at the Yale University School of Art, where she has taught since 2004. She has published five books, including "Fun and Games" and "Joe's Junk Yard." Her work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Brooklyn Museum, and has appeared in the "New Yorker," "Harper's" and the "New York Times Magazine."

Landscape Photography On Location: Travel, Learn, Explore, Shoot


Thomas Heaton - 2016
    It is packed with stories and anecdotes from behind the image. There are tips on using social media to get your images seen by millions. The book offers advice on hiking, travel and the great outdoors as well as useful information on technical subjects such as where to focus and shooting RAW. After reading this book, not only will your photography start to improve, but you will be inspired to get up and out at dawn and stay out until dark. This book is for the beginner as well as the seasoned professional. Travel, Learn, Explore, Shoot.

Photographing Your Family: And All the Kids and Friends and Animals Who Wander Through Too


John Healey - 2008
    Sartore’s photographs delight and inspire, from the first moments a newborn enters the house to Halloween parades, from visits with family and friends to fireworks on the Fourth of July. Easy-to-follow tips and instructions make the creative process simple, helping parents approach photography in a whole new way. Digital photographers will appreciate tips on editing techniques, album innovations, archiving methods, and printing. Sartore’s charisma and humor make learning a pure delight. Unlike competitive titles, Photographing Your Family is lavishly illustrated to show the many ways to make pictures, how Sartore captured these images specifically, and the philosophies a world-class photographer brings to his work at home—with emphasis on the contributions that relatives, friends, and pets can make to the story that is family. Early childhood is a fleeting time that parents and grandparents go to great lengths to capture in photos. This book will appeal to a vast audience: families who want to create memorable albums, parents with new babies, and everyone who wants to give a truly unique and useful family gift.

Photographing Shadow and Light: Inside the Dramatic Lighting Techniques and Creative Vision of Portrait Photographer Joey L.


Joey L. - 2012
    Photographer Joey L. found his vision early, drawing critical acclaim as a brilliant commercial photographer with a distinctive technical expertise for lighting.             In Photographing Shadow and Light, Joey lifts the curtain on his dramatic, creatively fearless approach to portraiture, sharing his personal philosophy and a behind-the-scenes look at 15 striking photo sessions—from personal projects shot in Africa, India, and Brooklyn to commercial shoots for 50 Cent, the Jonas Brothers, and Project Runway All Stars. Joey provides readers with a step-by-step description of how he visualized each shoot, formed meaningful connections with his subjects, and “built” his signature dramatic lighting effects—one light at a time.            Featuring more than 85 stunning portraits, detailed lighting diagrams, and a foreword from industry icon David Hobby (aka Strobist), Photographing Shadow and Light shares the creative process behind one of today’s most exciting photography talents, providing serious amateurs and professionals a fresh perspective on creating compelling, professional quality portraits. “Joey Lawrence is . . . the future of photography. Get used to it.” —David Hobby (Strobist) Get inside the images of commercial and fine art portrait photographer Joey L. with this behind-the-lens guide to his fearless approach, creative vision, and signature lighting techniques.Also available as an ebook

William Eggleston


William Eggleston - 1999
    His 1976 exhibition, Photographs by William Eggleston, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, marked a turning point in the history of photography: this was when color photography gained recognition as a medium of artistic expression. His intense and dramatic use of color and "democratic" approach to mundane subject matter continue to have an enormous impact on contemporary photographic practice. Published to accompany a French exhibition, this book brings together Eggleston's most significant works, from his first experiments in black-and-white to a series of photographs of Kyoto produced specifically for the exhibit. Drawing on public and private collections in Europe and the United States, the book includes vintage prints executed in the technique most characteristic of his work, the dye transfer process, as well as many lesser-known and previously unseen photographs. From Mississippi to Berlin, Kenya to Asia, Eggleston has tirelessly explored the wider world, transforming, through his camera, the ordinary into the extraordinary. Distributed on behalf of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain. 160 color photographs.

Love on the Left Bank


Ed van der Elsken - 1999
    Elsken focuses on the Left Bank of Paris in the 1950s—a time when it was recognised as a centre of creative ferment which would determine the cultural agenda of a generation. With its unconventional, gritty, snapshot-like technique the work has been acclaimed as expanding the boundaries of documentary photography.