Book picks similar to
The Transparent City by Michael Wolf


architecture
photography
photography-books
read-photography

The Luminous Portrait: Capture the Beauty of Natural Light for Glowing, Flattering Photographs


Elizabeth Messina - 2012
    Whether you’re photographing children, weddings, maternity and boudoir, or portraits of any kind, The Luminous Portrait will inspire you with Elizabeth’s personal approach and award-wining images, sharing the art to making flattering portraits that appear “lit from within.”

Wisconsin Death Trip


Michael Lesy - 1973
    Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910 by a Black River Falls photographer, Charles Van Schaik.

Nikon D3100: From Snapshots to Great Shots


Jeff Revell - 2010
    A guide to the Nikon D3100 camera provides information on the camera's scene modes, composition, focus, lighting, and composition to take successful portraits and sports and landscape photographs.

Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye


Gilles Mora - 1989
    Evans documented the look and feel of much of his native country in a notably distinct way throughout the majority of the twentieth century. This definitive retrospective of Evans's career, which received France's Prix de Nadar and England's Krasna-Kraus Award when first published in hardcover, is now available for the first time as a reduced-format paperback." "Prepared by John T. Hill in cooperation with Gilles Mora, Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye begins with the artist's early abstractions and his project on the Brooklyn Bridge done in collaboration with American poet Hart Crane, and continues through Evans's photographic studies of New England and New York Victorian buildings; his travels to Tahiti and Cuba; his work in Florida and New Orleans; and his three-year involvement with the Farm Security Administration. A highlight of this volume is the material from Evans's highly influential show American Photographs at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, re-created in exactly the sequence that Evans established for the original exhibition." No broader or more comprehensive view of this important, innovative, and distinguished photographer exists to date. With all of the images superbly reproduced from negatives prepared by Thomas Palmer, this volume will long stand as a tribute to an American original.

Hard Ground


Tom Waits - 2011
    Their initial contact grew into a friendship that O'Brien chronicled for the Miami News, where he began his career as a staff photographer. O'Brien's photo essays conveyed empathy for the homeless and the disenfranchised and won two Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards. In 2006, O'Brien reconnected with the issue of homelessness and learned the problem has grown exponentially since the 1970s, with as many as 3.5 million adults and children in America experiencing homelessness at some point in any given year.In Hard Ground, O'Brien joins with renowned singer-songwriter Tom Waits, described by the New York Times as "the poet of outcasts," to create a portrait of homelessness that impels us to look into the eyes of people who live "on the hard ground" and recognize our common humanity. For Waits, who has spent decades writing about outsiders, this subject is familiar territory. Combining their formidable talents in photography and poetry, O'Brien and Waits have crafted a work in the spirit of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, in which James Agee's text and Walker Evans's photographs were "coequal, mutually independent, and fully collaborative" elements. Letting words and images communicate on their own terms, rather than merely illustrate each other, Hard Ground transcends documentary and presents independent, yet powerfully complementary views of the trials of homelessness and the resilience of people who survive on the streets.

Abandoned Places


Kieron Connolly - 2016
    Arranged thematically from industrial to military sites, from ghosts towns to recreational sites, the book explains through extended captions the story of how each place came to be abandoned - natural or chemical disaster, war, economic collapse, changing attitudes and tastes. Often it's because the world has moved on and these places are no longer of use or interest in the march of progress. Throughout, though, emerges a picture not of what has been lost, but of what remains. Left to the elements but also ignored by humanity, the photographs of these ghost towns, crumbling structures and vessels illuminate worlds for us that we thought were lost. Through these, we gain a glimpse into the past. With more than 150 outstanding colour photographs exploring hauntingly beautiful places over one or two spreads, Abandoned Places is an excellent pictorial examination of worlds that we've left behind.

Underwater Dogs


Seth Casteel - 2012
    From the water's surface, it's a simple exercise: a dog's leap, a splash, and then a wet head surfacing with a ball, triumphant. But beneath the water is a chaotic ballet of bared teeth and bubbles, paddling paws, fur and ears billowing in the currents. From leaping Lab to diving Dachshund, the water is where a dog's distinct personality shines through; some lounge in the current, paddling slowly, but others arch their bodies to cut through the water with the focus and determination of a shark. In more than eighty portraits, award-winning pet photographer and animal rights activist Seth Casteel captures new sides of our old friends with vibrant underwater photography that makes it impossible to look away. Each image bubbles with exuberance and life, a striking reminder that even in the most loveable and domesticated dog, there are more primal forces at work. In Underwater Dogs, Seth Casteel gives playful and energetic testament to the rough-and-tumble joy that our dogs bring into our lives.

Coincidence of Memory


Viggo Mortensen - 2002
    In this beautifully illustrated book, the artist combines photographs, paintings, and poems that span his artistic output from 1978 to 2002.

"Giant" Size


Andy Warhol - 2006
    The book features 2,000 images and documents, many previously unpublished. Note: PBS-TV's American Masters will broadcast a 2 hour Warhol documentary by Ric Burns to air in May 2006.

Beautiful Losers: Contemporary Art and Street Culture


Aaron Rose - 2004
    More often than not, these manifestations have been the result of a few like-minded people coming together to create something new and original for no other purpose than a common love of doing it. In the 1990s, a loose-knit group of American artists and creators, many just out of their teens, began their careers in just such a way. Influenced by the popular underground youth subcultures of the day, such as skateboarding, graffiti, street fashion and independent music, artists like Shepard Fairey, Mark Gonzales, Spike Jonze, Margaret Kilgallen, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, Phil Frost, Chris Johanson, Harmony Korine and Ed Templeton began to create art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Many had no formal training and almost no conception of the inner workings of the art world. They learned their crafts through practice, trial and error, and good old-fashioned innovation. Not since the Beat Generation have we seen a group of creative individuals with such a unified aesthetic sense and varied cultural facets. The world of art has been greatly affected by their accomplishments as have the worlds of fashion, music, literature, film, and, ironically, athletics. Beautiful Losers is a retrospective celebration of this spirit, with hundreds of artworks by over two dozen artists, from precursors like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Larry Clark, to more recent adherents Ryan McGinness, KAWS and Geoff McFetridge. Work in all conceivable mediums is included, plus reproductions of reams of ephemera. The accompanying essays are contributed by a half-dozen writers who have championed these beautiful losers from the start. This paperback reprint includes more pages, more images, an exhibition checklist, installation shots from a variety of exhibitions and an interview with Beautiful Losers advocate Agnes B.

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.

Abandoned America: The Age of Consequences


Matthew Christopher - 2014
    The desire to gain a greater understanding of our past has driven archaeologists, artists, and scholars from across the world to study the vestiges of lifestyles that have vanished in an attempt to capture their mystique and beauty.Originally intended as an examination of the rise and fall of the state hospital system, Matthew Christopher’s Abandoned America rapidly grew to encompass derelict factories and industrial sites, schools, churches, power plants, hospitals, prisons, military installations, hotels, resorts, homes, and more. Through his collection of writing and photography, Christopher has spent the last decade documenting the ruins of one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known: our own. Exploring sites like the charred remains of the Hotel Do De, the rusted cells of the Essex County Jail Annex, the sublime majesty of the Church of the Transfiguration, or the eerie and dilapidated remnants of the New Castle Elks Lodge, the work spans architectural treasures left to the elements and then all too often lost forever.

The Moment It Clicks: Photography Secrets from One of the World's Top Shooters


Joe McNally - 2008
    These on-location workshops are usually reserved for a handful of photographers each year, but now you can learn the same techniques that Joe shares in his seminars and lectures in a book that brings Joe's sessions to life.What makes the book so unique is the "triangle of learning" where (1) Joe distills the concept down to one brief sentence. It usually starts with something like, "An editor at National Geographic once told me..." and then he shares one of those hard-earned tricks of the trade that you only get from spending a lifetime behind the lens. Then, (2) on the facing page is one of Joe's brilliant images that perfectly illustrates the technique (you'll recognize many of his photos from magazine covers). And (3) you get the inside story of how that shot was taken, including which equipment he used (lens, f/stop, lighting, accessories, etc.), along with the challenges that type of project brings, and how to set up a shot like that of your own.This book also gives you something more. It inspires. It challenges. It informs. But perhaps most importantly, it will help you understand photography and the art of making great photos at a level you never thought possible. This book is packed with those "Ah ha!" moments--those clever insights that make it all come together for you. It brings you that wonderful moment when it suddenly all makes sense--that "moment it clicks."

Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera


Ron Schick - 2009
     Working alongside skilled photographers, Rockwell acted as director, carefully orchestrating models, selecting props, and choosing locations for the photographs -- works of art in their own right -- that served as the basis of his iconic images. Readers will be surprised to find that many of his most memorable characters -- the girl at the mirror, the young couple on prom night, the family on vacation -- were friends and neighbors who served as his amateur models. In this groundbreaking book, author and historian Ron Schick delves into the archive of nearly 20,000 photographs housed at the Norman Rockwell Museum. Featuring reproductions of Rockwell's black-and-white photographs and related full-color artworks, along with an incisive narrative and quotes from Rockwell models and family members, this book will intrigue anyone interested in photography, art, and Americana.

Tomboy Style: Beyond the Boundaries of Fashion


Lizzie Garrett Mettler - 2012
    They are bold, brazen, fierce—and sexy. They aren’t known for following rules, they are known for doing—and wearing—whatever they want. Tomboy captures the tomboy’s style, her je ne sais quoi, her wardrobe, and most importantly, her spirit. Throughout the twentieth century, the mass marketing of gender stereotypes meant tomboys cropped up against the odds, trends, and ads. As menswear-inspired fashions for women have exploded into the mainstream under the helm of designers and stylists ranging from J.Crew to Rag & Bone to Boy by Band of Outsiders, acceptance of both the word tomboy and the women associated with its edge has been set into play. But a tomboy is not just about style—tomboys are measured in equal parts wardrobe and spirit.A visual history that chronicles the past eighty years of women who blur the line between masculinity and femininity, Tomboy explores the evolution of the style and its icons. Vivid commentary illuminates the tomboy’s history and captures a diversity of women who are bound together by their inherent ability to seamlessly blend a rugged sensibility with classic, understated elegance.