Book picks similar to
50 Photographers You Should Know by Peter Stepan
photography
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nonfiction
Photo Icons
Hans-Michael Koetzle - 1996
To demonstrate the unique and profound influence on culture and society that photographs have, Photo Icons puts the most important landmarks in the history of photography under the microscope. Each chapter of this special edition focuses on a single image which is described and analyzed in detail, in aesthetic, historical, and artistic contexts. The book begins with the very first permanent images (Nic?phore Ni?pce's 1827 eight-hour-exposure rooftop picture and Louis Daguerre's famous 1839 street scene) and takes the reader up through the present day, via the avant-garde photography of the 1920s and works such as Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother (1936), Robert Doisneau's Kiss in Front of City Hall (1950), and Martin Parr's 'New European photography.'
On Being a Photographer: a Practical Guide
David Hurn - 1997
On Being a Photographer has become one of the most popular books ever written with practical advice for photographers.
The Secret Lives of Color
Kassia St. Clair - 2016
From blonde to ginger, the brown that changed the way battles were fought to the white that protected against the plague, Picasso's blue period to the charcoal on the cave walls at Lascaux, acid yellow to kelly green, and from scarlet women to imperial purple, these surprising stories run like a bright thread throughout history.In this book, Kassia St. Clair has turned her lifelong obsession with colors and where they come from (whether Van Gogh's chrome yellow sunflowers or punk's fluorescent pink) into a unique study of human civilization. Across fashion and politics, art and war, the secret lives of color tell the vivid story of our culture.
Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits: Stories and Techniques from a Photographer's Photographer
Gregory Heisler - 2013
From his famously controversial portrait of President George H.W. Bush (which led to the revocation of Heisler’s White House clearance) to his evocative post-9/11 Time magazine cover of Rudolph Giuliani, to stunning portraits of Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington, Hillary Clinton, Michael Phelps, Muhammad Ali, and many more, Heisler reveals the creative and technical processes that led to each frame. For Heisler’s fans and all lovers of photography, Gregory Heisler: 50 Portraits offers not only a gorgeous collection of both black-and-white and color portraits, but an engrossing look at the rarely seen art of a master photographer at work. With a foreword by New York City mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
A Year of Mornings: 3191 Miles Apart
Maria Alexandra Vettese - 2008
On the morning of December 7, 2006, Maria Alexandra Vettese and Stephanie Congdon Barnes each took a digital photo of everyday objects randomly arranged on their kitchen tables and, unbeknownst to one another, uploaded them to the website Flickr. Noticing a remarkable similarity between their images, they agreed to document their mornings by posting one photo to a shared blog every weekday for a year. Their site, 3191 (http://3191.visualblogging.com) named after the distance in miles between their homes in Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon quickly acquired a worldwide following of devotees fascinated by the magical coincidences and pictorial synchronicity of their photographic pairings.A Year of Mornings collects 236 images, always taken before 10 am without discussion between the two women, from this uniquely 21st-century artistic collaboration. The intimacy of these photographs; discarded clothing, a view of a snowy day from the window, a tablecloth combined with their striking similarities in color and composition, defies the reality of their long-distance collaboration. While clearly kindred spirits, the two women have met in person only once. Their friendship is maintained solely online, sustained by a shared love for moments of serenity, solitude, and peacefulness. The annotated photographs in A Year of Mornings radiate an aura of sweetness and light, the promise of a new day.
The Human Figure in Motion
Eadweard Muybridge - 1955
Containing 4,789 photographs, it illustrates some 163 different types of action: elderly man lifting log, woman sweeping, woman climbing ladder, men boxing and wrestling, child crawling, man lifting weight, man jumping, and 155 other types of action, some of which are illustrated by as many as 62 different photographs. Taken at speeds ranging up to 1/6000th of a second, these photographs show bone and muscle positions against ruled backgrounds. Almost all subjects are undraped, and all actions are shown from three angles: front, rear, and three-quarter view. These historic photographs, one of the great monuments of nineteenth-century photography, are reproduced original size, with all the clarity and detail of the originals. As a complete thesaurus of human action, it has never been superseded. Muybridge was a genius of photography, who had unlimited financial, technical, and scientific backing at the University of Pennsylvania. This volume presents the final selection from more than 100,000 negatives made at an expenditure of more than $50,000. It has never been superseded as a sourcebook for artists, students, animators, and art directors. "An unparalleled dictionary of action for all artists, photographers." — American Artist."Impressive and valuable collection." — Scientific American.
Painting People: Figure Painting Today
Charlotte Mullins - 2006
A new generation of artists--as well as some who never abandoned figurative painting in the first place--is relishing the solitary, slow, subtle set of processes involved in not just painting, but painting people. They are choosing paint's unique ability to distill a lifetime of events rather than photography's glimpse of a frozen moment. Painting People, edited by the prominent London art historian and critic Charlotte Mullins, unites and contrasts the work of a key group of artists from around the world, and investigates their richly varied accomplishments in lucid text with detailed commentaries, accompanied by more than 150 reproductions. The list of contributing artists is stellar, ranging from photo-based painters like Luc Tuymans, Peter Doig and Marlene Dumas to Pop artists like Sigmar Polke and Alex Katz, photorealists like Chuck Close and Gerhard Richter, Neoexpressionists like Cecily Brown, and comics-inspired painters like Yoshitomo Nara, Inka Essenhigh and Takashi Murakami. There are erotic grotesques from John Currin and Lisa Yuskavage, meditations on the muse by Elizabeth Peyton and Lucian Freud, "Repro-realistic" work from Neo Rauch and of course self-portraits by Philip Akkerman and Marcel Dzama, among others.
The New Manual of Photography
John Hedgecoe - 1986
Authoritative and easy-to-understand, The New Manual of Photography features practical advice on every element of the photographic process, from how to choose the right equipment and specialist techniques to inspirational guidance on the art of creative composition.
ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography
American Society of Media Photographers - 1997
Up-to-the-minute coverage now includes digital assetmanagement; metadata standards; the role ofInternet, FTP, and e-mail technologies; the impactof media consolidation on assignment and stock photography;and much more. This indispensable guidecovers the full range of business and legal questionsthat photographers might have, with comprehensiveadvice from the ASMP, the foremost authorityin the field. In eleven in-depth chapters, morethan two dozen industry experts explore pricingand negotiating, ethics, rights in traditional andelectronic media, publishing, and much more. Businessand legal forms, checklists, and an extensivecross-media bibliography make this the one reference book that deserves a place on every successful photographer's bookshelf.• Covers all of today's most urgent issues in photography• Contributions from more than two dozenexperts, all professional photographers• 60,000 copies sold!
The President's Photographer: Fifty Years Inside the Oval Office
John Bredar - 2010
Expressive close-ups of presidents reveal moments of joy, reflection, and turmoil over public issues and private challenges. Unexpected angles cast new light on historic events. Through both iconic and little-known images, this book offers a fresh perspective on life and work behind the famous facade of the White House.The President's Photographer is the official companion book to the National Geographic Channel special that aired in November 2010.
Libraries
Candida Höfer - 2005
Since nobody photographs libraries as beautifully as Hofer, it seemed only natural to dedicate one of her publications to the splendid and intimate cathedrals of knowledge across Europe and the US: the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum in New york, Villa Medici in Rome, the Hamburg University library, the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris, the Museo Archeologico in Madrid, and Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, to name just a few. Almost completely devoid of people, as is Candida Hofer's trademark, these pictures radiate a comforting serenity that is exceptional in contemporary photography. Now available in an unchanged reprint.
Accidentally Wes Anderson
Wally Koval - 2020
Accidentally Wes Anderson began as a personal travel bucket list, a catalog of visually striking and historically unique destinations that capture the imagined worlds of Wes Anderson. Now, inspired by a community of more than one million Adventurers, Accidentally Wes Anderson tells the stories behind more than 200 of the most beautiful, idiosyncratic, and interesting places on Earth. This book, authorized by Wes Anderson himself, travels to every continent and into your own backyard to identify quirky landmarks and undiscovered gems: places you may have passed by, some you always wanted to explore, and many you never knew existed. Fueled by a vision for distinctive design, stunning photography, and unexpected narratives, Accidentally Wes Anderson is a passport to inspiration and adventure. Perfect for modern travelers and fans of Wes Anderson's distinctive aesthetic, this is an invitation to look at your world through a different lens.
Welcome to Marwencol
Mark E. Hogancamp - 2010
Waking from a nine-day coma, he had no memory of the thirty-eight prior years of his life, including his ex-wife, family, artistic talents, or military service. To reconstruct his past, Hogancamp built, in his backyard, Marwencol, an imaginary village set in World War II Belgium, where everybody is welcome—Germans, Americans, French, British, and Russians—as long as peace is kept. With 1:6 scale action figures and Barbie dolls, as well as toy armaments and meticulously built props, buildings, and clothes, Marwencol is an alternate reality, created with painstaking (and sometimes painful) realism and obsessive attention to detail.Here, riveting wartime dramas are played out and photographed in saturated hues and unflinching detail. The emotional narrative mirrors the artist's own: through Marwencol, Hogancamp regained his cognitive facilities.Welcome to Marwencol is an astonishing story of the redemptive power of art—of art as therapy and act of obsession.
The Art of Photography: An Approach to Personal Expression
Bruce Barnbaum - 1994
In his accessible style, Barnbaum presents how-to techniques for both traditional and digital approaches. Yet he goes well beyond the technical as he delves deeply into the philosophical, expressive, and creative aspects of photography. This book is geared toward every level of photographer who seeks to make a personal statement through their chosen medium. Bruce Barnbaum is recognized as one of the world’s finest photographers as well as an elite instructor. This newest incarnation of his book, which has evolved over the past 35 years, will prove to be an invaluable photographic reference for years to come. This is truly the resource of choice for the thinking photographer. Filled with over 100 beautiful photographs, as well as numerous charts, graphs, and tables.
American Photographs
Walker Evans - 1938
The original edition of American Photographs was a carefully prepared letterpress production, published by The Museum of Modern Art in 1938 to accompany an exhibition of photographs by Evans that captured scenes of America in the early 1930s. As noted on the jacket of the first edition, Evans, "photographing in New England or Louisiana, watching a Cuban political funeral or a Mississippi flood, working cautiously so as to disturb nothing in the normal atmosphere of the average place, can be considered a kind of disembodied, burrowing eye, a conspirator against time and its hammers." This seventy-fifth anniversary edition of American Photographs, made with new reproductions, recreates the original 1938 edition as closely as possible to make the landmark publication available for a new generation. American Photographs has fallen out of print for long periods of time since it was first published, and even subsequent editions--two of which altered the design and typography of the book in small but significant ways--are often available only at libraries and rare bookstores. This version, like the fiftieth-anniversary edition produced by the Museum in 1988, captures the look and feel of the very first edition with the aid of new digital technologies.