maandag 29 september 2008

The 10 or 25 most important and influential photography books in the last fifty or more years?

Emmet Gowin, Nancy, Danville, Virginia, 1969, from the 1976 classic Emmet Gowin: Photographs. Sally Mann has this picture framed and hanging in her kitchen.


The other day, in a post about The Americans, a reader named Paul asked: "Mike, any chance perhaps of giving us your opinion on the 10 or 25 most important and influential photography books in the last fifty or more years? Those books any kid new to photography could use to educate his eye and not with the idea of making a monetary investment."

I did answer his question in the comments to the post. However, as I've mulled it over since then (I love books, I love lists, and I have an essentially schoolteacherish cast of mind, so you can understand how Paul's request would appeal to me), I've come around to realizing just how impossible compiling such a list would be.

I certainly see the appeal of a "teaching set" of books that could serve as a sort of basic encylopædia of the medium's accomplishments. But as I proceed to imagine it in its particulars, the obstacles seem more and more multi-dimensional and profound. The two limitations I mentioned in my answer in the comments were 1) limitations of availability and 2) the limitations of my (or any list-compiler's) taste and critical judgment. In truth the problems extend much further than that. Read more ...

Our Entire Series of Photo Book Posts:


Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part I: Reissues by Mike Johnston


We All Love Photography Now, It's Official! by Martin Parr (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part II)

Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part III: New Books by Mike Johnston

Jeff Ladd's List (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part IV) by Jeff Ladd

Geoff Wittig's List (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New Part V)
Edward S. Curtis, Mosa, Mojave, 1903

The 10 or 25 most important and influential photography books in the last fifty or more years?

Emmet Gowin, Nancy, Danville, Virginia, 1969, from the 1976 classic Emmet Gowin: Photographs. Sally Mann has this picture framed and hanging in her kitchen.


The other day, in a post about The Americans, a reader named Paul asked: "Mike, any chance perhaps of giving us your opinion on the 10 or 25 most important and influential photography books in the last fifty or more years? Those books any kid new to photography could use to educate his eye and not with the idea of making a monetary investment."

I did answer his question in the comments to the post. However, as I've mulled it over since then (I love books, I love lists, and I have an essentially schoolteacherish cast of mind, so you can understand how Paul's request would appeal to me), I've come around to realizing just how impossible compiling such a list would be.

I certainly see the appeal of a "teaching set" of books that could serve as a sort of basic encylopædia of the medium's accomplishments. But as I proceed to imagine it in its particulars, the obstacles seem more and more multi-dimensional and profound. The two limitations I mentioned in my answer in the comments were 1) limitations of availability and 2) the limitations of my (or any list-compiler's) taste and critical judgment. In truth the problems extend much further than that. Read more ...

Our Entire Series of Photo Book Posts:


Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part I: Reissues by Mike Johnston


We All Love Photography Now, It's Official! by Martin Parr (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part II)

Great Photo Books You Can Buy New—Part III: New Books by Mike Johnston

Jeff Ladd's List (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New, Part IV) by Jeff Ladd

Geoff Wittig's List (Great Photo Books You Can Buy New Part V)
Edward S. Curtis, Mosa, Mojave, 1903

Design Icon Voyeur by Hans-Peter Feldmann Photography

Design Icon
This piece originally appeared in the December 2005 issue of Grafik magazine.

VOYEUR by Hans-Peter Feldmann
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln1994, 1997

This book is 165 x 110 x 10mm, 256 pages, 198 grams, the paper weight is just right, smaller than your average paperback, perfect bound (doesn’t lay flat), sits in my hand, fits in my pocket and gets lost on a shelf between flabby, super-size photography books. It’s small, modest, friendly and seems to me to be the ideal design icon for our time. It’s a re-sampled, re-issued, re-packaged celebration and confusion of the everyday. Black and white reproductions of photographs taken from photojournalism, stock libraries and art photography are presented to the reader, each page/spread with its own rhythm, one to six or more slightly coarse screened photographs per page ranging in size from 24 x 24mm to 150 x 98mm. This sophisticated scrapbook sits in the category of ‘artist’s book’, though I suspect Feldmann wouldn’t be happy with that distinction. He believes that everyone is an artist. Feldmann has been doing this type of thing for three decades. You see his influence amongst others in magazines like ‘Permanent Food’, the paperback journal produced by Maurizio Cattelan and co.,where every page is appropriated from magazines all over the world. The perfect post-modern product.

Feldmann seems to know ‘the thrill and dread of a world in which “all that is solid melts into air”’(Marshall Berman quoting Marx). Like our lives, the book is full of paradox and contradiction. It reads differently every time (the second edition has the same images as the first but in a different order). We see a complex landscape of stolen images; some violent, others pornographic, both victims and perpetrators are there: newlyweds, porn stars, a kiss, a dressing room, a car crash, a male model, a polar bear, the queen mother, a baby, a fly, a burial, a mousetrap, a lighthouse, a masked man, a seagull, an 80s model, a laughing old couple, a singing lesson, a boxer, Jamie Lee Curtis undressing, chimpanzees hugging, Princess Anne meeting dancers, a plate of sweetcorn, an empty bedroom, a girl stretching, a dog swimming, a full moon, a happy dentist and so on. The combinations and sequences of images can be playful or distressing. Each time you flick through the book you see a new image.

These are images divorced from their original text. Something I wish would happen to the Saturday Guardian, whose lifestyle supplements say nothing to me about my life. Mr public figure Smith goes to see a pop concert and in exchange his son goes to the opera. How thrilling. How middle-class. Who cares? No danger of that with this icon, this book is – as Feldmann might say – “guaranteed free of text”. There’s no guide on how to live and work in the modern world. Here the book agrees with Sontag in On Photography ‘Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.

’What about the cover? It’s not exactly an example of ‘modernist good taste’ (see Phaidon press), but equally I don’t think we’re dealing with the tired, knowing wink of irony, or the vernacular (the ‘low’ rather than the ‘high’). It’s more honest than that. While this book is more than likely bought by the ‘graphically’ sophisticated, there’s no reason this book shouldn’t have a broader appeal. It’s for your mum and dad too.

A bigger question: Is it possible or even desirable to discuss a piece of ‘design’ without mentioning the content? Can you enjoy a dutch poster without knowing what it says? Could I choose a Faucheux designed bookcover as my graphic design icon, without reading French? Can you celebrate the ‘form’ without being interested in the content? You can but I don’t think that’s healthy. To sample and re-issue an idea put by Robin Kinross in Fellow Readers: ‘It is worth trying a brutally simple attitude to design: judge it by its content. This certainly helps to clear the mind – and maybe the shops and museums too.’

Design Icon Voyeur by Hans-Peter Feldmann Photography

Design Icon
This piece originally appeared in the December 2005 issue of Grafik magazine.

VOYEUR by Hans-Peter Feldmann
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln1994, 1997

This book is 165 x 110 x 10mm, 256 pages, 198 grams, the paper weight is just right, smaller than your average paperback, perfect bound (doesn’t lay flat), sits in my hand, fits in my pocket and gets lost on a shelf between flabby, super-size photography books. It’s small, modest, friendly and seems to me to be the ideal design icon for our time. It’s a re-sampled, re-issued, re-packaged celebration and confusion of the everyday. Black and white reproductions of photographs taken from photojournalism, stock libraries and art photography are presented to the reader, each page/spread with its own rhythm, one to six or more slightly coarse screened photographs per page ranging in size from 24 x 24mm to 150 x 98mm. This sophisticated scrapbook sits in the category of ‘artist’s book’, though I suspect Feldmann wouldn’t be happy with that distinction. He believes that everyone is an artist. Feldmann has been doing this type of thing for three decades. You see his influence amongst others in magazines like ‘Permanent Food’, the paperback journal produced by Maurizio Cattelan and co.,where every page is appropriated from magazines all over the world. The perfect post-modern product.

Feldmann seems to know ‘the thrill and dread of a world in which “all that is solid melts into air”’(Marshall Berman quoting Marx). Like our lives, the book is full of paradox and contradiction. It reads differently every time (the second edition has the same images as the first but in a different order). We see a complex landscape of stolen images; some violent, others pornographic, both victims and perpetrators are there: newlyweds, porn stars, a kiss, a dressing room, a car crash, a male model, a polar bear, the queen mother, a baby, a fly, a burial, a mousetrap, a lighthouse, a masked man, a seagull, an 80s model, a laughing old couple, a singing lesson, a boxer, Jamie Lee Curtis undressing, chimpanzees hugging, Princess Anne meeting dancers, a plate of sweetcorn, an empty bedroom, a girl stretching, a dog swimming, a full moon, a happy dentist and so on. The combinations and sequences of images can be playful or distressing. Each time you flick through the book you see a new image.

These are images divorced from their original text. Something I wish would happen to the Saturday Guardian, whose lifestyle supplements say nothing to me about my life. Mr public figure Smith goes to see a pop concert and in exchange his son goes to the opera. How thrilling. How middle-class. Who cares? No danger of that with this icon, this book is – as Feldmann might say – “guaranteed free of text”. There’s no guide on how to live and work in the modern world. Here the book agrees with Sontag in On Photography ‘Photographs, which cannot themselves explain anything, are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation, and fantasy.

’What about the cover? It’s not exactly an example of ‘modernist good taste’ (see Phaidon press), but equally I don’t think we’re dealing with the tired, knowing wink of irony, or the vernacular (the ‘low’ rather than the ‘high’). It’s more honest than that. While this book is more than likely bought by the ‘graphically’ sophisticated, there’s no reason this book shouldn’t have a broader appeal. It’s for your mum and dad too.

A bigger question: Is it possible or even desirable to discuss a piece of ‘design’ without mentioning the content? Can you enjoy a dutch poster without knowing what it says? Could I choose a Faucheux designed bookcover as my graphic design icon, without reading French? Can you celebrate the ‘form’ without being interested in the content? You can but I don’t think that’s healthy. To sample and re-issue an idea put by Robin Kinross in Fellow Readers: ‘It is worth trying a brutally simple attitude to design: judge it by its content. This certainly helps to clear the mind – and maybe the shops and museums too.’

zondag 28 september 2008

Dutch Eyes Edward Hopper Norman Rockwell by Erwin Olaf Photography

Erwin Olaf Rain, Hope Grief & Fall 27 September 2008 - 18 January 2009 Lees meer ...

With their averted eyes half open, staring into nothingness, the models in the photographs in Erwin Olaf’s latest series, Fall, evoke a strange kind of aloofness. The portraits are interspersed with still lifes of plants and flowers in simple ceramic vases. With its use of colour, the strange, almost awkward expressions on the faces of the models and the almost unreal setting, the series Fall is in some ways the logical successor to the earlier series Grief, Hope and Rain. This autumn, all four will be on display together for the first time in a retrospective at The Hague Museum of Photography.

Though the adolescents in the photographs in Fall (2008) have the stylised perfection so characteristic of Olaf’s work, they are not perfect examples of our current ideal of beauty. Their curious expressions are determined to a large extent by the fact that the images were taken as they were blinking. This makes it unclear what the models are actually feeling, what their real emotions are. The combination with still lifes of flowers and the title of the series highlight what may very well be the key theme of Fall – the transient nature of beauty. The exhibition in The Hague Museum of Photography will be the series world premiere.

While Erwin Olaf (b. 1959) was previously known for his hedonistic photographs of extravagant partygoers or people as actors in flamboyant baroque settings, nowadays the common themes in his work are serenity and fragility, as the four series in the exhibition clearly show. His palette is reminiscent of the 1950s, as is the environment in which the people – and plants – are pictured.

The images in Grief (2007) raise all kinds of questions. We see people, some of them crying, others staring out through the windows of a 1960s interior. What has happened? What has befallen these people? The subject of Hope (2005) and Rain (2004) is the American stereotype. In almost surreal Technicolor settings we see stereotypical figures like a boy scout, cheerleaders and a housewife, often with an apathetic look in their eyes that raises more questions than the picture can answer. There is something endearing about the figures who populate these photographs, as if they were completely at a loss, about to beg us for answers.

The series consist of scenic photographs, portraits and video works, all of which will be included in the exhibition. The works will be shown chronologically, showing how Olaf’s work has developed in his recent series. A process that begins with the first sources of inspiration for Rain, the anecdotal, narrative visual language of American painters like Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell, and culminates in a pure ‘Olafian’ representation: hideous, grotesque, captured in an extremely elegant yet deceptive ambiance.

Erwin Olaf is not only photographer but also film maker. At a special evening that arthouse cinema Filmhuis Den Haag is planning in association with the retrospective, some of his most recent films will be shown. Aperture is publishing a book to accompany the exhibition, incorporating the first three series of photographs, as well as an extensive discussion of the films belonging to the series, including stills and a DVD. After The Hague, the exhibition will move on to the Institut Neerlandais in Paris (May 2009).

zaterdag 27 september 2008

Welcome in the Baghdad Suite Heimat Hotel Breda Martin Parr's World Photography

Starring : Edie Peters, Erik Kessels, Jan Banning ( slideshow ), Maarten Schilt, Rob Hornstra (more ...), Andrew Phelps, Ernest Potters & Yannick Bouillis ...

Focusing the photobooks : Almost Every Picture, Useful Photography,(Hans-Peter Feldmann) Ansichten von Autoradios in denen gerade gute Musik spielt 1970s-90s, (Christian Boltanski) Kaddish, Bureaucratics, 101 Billionaires, Baghdad Suite, (Jodi Bieber) Schemertijd, (Willem Poelstra) 112 * Ambulance Amsterdam ...

The Buffet is open ... & lees verder ...

See for more ...
& see for an ode to Dutch Graphic Design in the 50s ...



donderdag 25 september 2008

Roger Dyckmans Doods Domeinen Bertolotti Photography

Doods domeinen by SCHOUWENAARS, Clem & DYCKMANS, Roger
Antwerpen, Uitgeverij Walter Soethoudt, 1972, foto's, gebonden met stofomslag

Eerste en enige uitgave. Gedichten van Clem Schouwenaars en erotische foto's van Roger Dyckmans. "Als ik de naam Clem Schouwenaars zie, denk ik aan mijn uitgave van Doods domeinen met de sublieme foto’s van Roger Dyckmans, nog altijd een van de mooist uitgegeven dichtbundels in Vlaanderen", dixit Walter Soethoudt. See also Alessandro Bertolotti Books of Nudes...

Doods Domeinen (Deadly fields, 1971) written by Clem Schouwenaars with photographs by Roger Dyckmans, fits in with the Dutch tradition of the beeldroman (story in pictures). In the 1950s, artists had already speculated as to whether the image could permanently replace the world as a means of communication. In this case, the photographs and fragments of text alternate on the pages like two equivalent and complementary forms, telling the story of two naked, enigmatic, sensual women, inside a ruined building and on a deserted beach.



Roger Dyckmans Doods Domeinen Bertolotti Photography

Doods domeinen by SCHOUWENAARS, Clem & DYCKMANS, Roger
Antwerpen, Uitgeverij Walter Soethoudt, 1972, foto's, gebonden met stofomslag

Eerste en enige uitgave. Gedichten van Clem Schouwenaars en erotische foto's van Roger Dyckmans. "Als ik de naam Clem Schouwenaars zie, denk ik aan mijn uitgave van Doods domeinen met de sublieme foto’s van Roger Dyckmans, nog altijd een van de mooist uitgegeven dichtbundels in Vlaanderen", dixit Walter Soethoudt. See also Alessandro Bertolotti Books of Nudes...

Doods Domeinen (Deadly fields, 1971) written by Clem Schouwenaars with photographs by Roger Dyckmans, fits in with the Dutch tradition of the beeldroman (story in pictures). In the 1950s, artists had already speculated as to whether the image could permanently replace the world as a means of communication. In this case, the photographs and fragments of text alternate on the pages like two equivalent and complementary forms, telling the story of two naked, enigmatic, sensual women, inside a ruined building and on a deserted beach.



A conversation about books between John Gossage and Jeffrey Ladd Photography

See for photo-eye magazine ...

A conversation about books between John Gossage and Jeffrey Ladd Photography

See for photo-eye magazine ...

dinsdag 23 september 2008

Rineke Dijkstra Hellen Van Meene Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers

Women In Photography International Establishes List of Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19, 2008 — Women In Photography International continues its tradition by establishing a list of the Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers for 2008. Included on the list are photography’s classics, Lillian Bassman, Jodi Cobb, Anne Geddes, Graciela Iturbide, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman.

Starting in 2006, to celebrate WIPI’s 25th Anniversary, Women In Photography International (http://www.womeninphotography.org) began the process of researching and culling the names of working women photographers worldwide for their online resource center. After two years, the finalized list of the top 100 female photographers was completed in August 2008, and serves as the 25th Anniversary Addendum to WIPI’s Distinguished Photographer’s Award, first presented to Eve Arnold in 1981.
Rineke Dijkstra, Sittard / NETHERLANDS http://tinyurl.com/5esh7n

Selecting the top 100 women photographers involved Googling each of the candidates nominated with attention focused on the artist’s body of work, history of exhibition, biographies, portfolios, career longevity, publications, and social impact. The selection acknowledges women starting at the earliest stages of their career to working photographers with twenty-five or more years of history.
Hellen Van Meene, Heiloo / NETHERLANDS http://tinyurl.com/3cxvqb

A variety of resource materials was used to assemble the list, most notably Dr. Naomi Rosenblum’s 1994 groundbreaking volume, “A History of Women Photographers,” and photo historian Peter E. Palmquist’s 2001 list of women photographers, donated to WIPI’s online resource center. The Palmquist Collection of Western American and Women’s Photography is housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Additional support and consultation were provided by photographers, curators, educators, museums, educational foundations, photographic organizations, and gallery owners worldwide.

Women In Photography International’s Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers list honors the accomplishments of dedicated working women photographers around the globe. Each of the nominees, and the selected finalists, have contributed uniquely to the field of the visual arts. Whether self-taught or formally educated, each of these women were selected for their dedication, artistry, and for creating a body of work that has touched our lives.

Rineke Dijkstra Hellen Van Meene Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers

Women In Photography International Establishes List of Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 19, 2008 — Women In Photography International continues its tradition by establishing a list of the Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers for 2008. Included on the list are photography’s classics, Lillian Bassman, Jodi Cobb, Anne Geddes, Graciela Iturbide, Helen Levitt, Sally Mann and Cindy Sherman.

Starting in 2006, to celebrate WIPI’s 25th Anniversary, Women In Photography International (http://www.womeninphotography.org) began the process of researching and culling the names of working women photographers worldwide for their online resource center. After two years, the finalized list of the top 100 female photographers was completed in August 2008, and serves as the 25th Anniversary Addendum to WIPI’s Distinguished Photographer’s Award, first presented to Eve Arnold in 1981.
Rineke Dijkstra, Sittard / NETHERLANDS http://tinyurl.com/5esh7n

Selecting the top 100 women photographers involved Googling each of the candidates nominated with attention focused on the artist’s body of work, history of exhibition, biographies, portfolios, career longevity, publications, and social impact. The selection acknowledges women starting at the earliest stages of their career to working photographers with twenty-five or more years of history.
Hellen Van Meene, Heiloo / NETHERLANDS http://tinyurl.com/3cxvqb

A variety of resource materials was used to assemble the list, most notably Dr. Naomi Rosenblum’s 1994 groundbreaking volume, “A History of Women Photographers,” and photo historian Peter E. Palmquist’s 2001 list of women photographers, donated to WIPI’s online resource center. The Palmquist Collection of Western American and Women’s Photography is housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Library. Additional support and consultation were provided by photographers, curators, educators, museums, educational foundations, photographic organizations, and gallery owners worldwide.

Women In Photography International’s Top 100 Distinguished Women Photographers list honors the accomplishments of dedicated working women photographers around the globe. Each of the nominees, and the selected finalists, have contributed uniquely to the field of the visual arts. Whether self-taught or formally educated, each of these women were selected for their dedication, artistry, and for creating a body of work that has touched our lives.

zondag 21 september 2008

Sanne Sannes the Vintage Works Hup Gallery Photography

Sanne Sannes Hup gallery, opens Tuesday 23 September until 21 November

Rare vintage works by Dutch photographer Sanne Sannes, who perished in a car accident in 1967. Renowned in the early '60s for using photography as a means to create autonomous art, he was known as the 'photographer of tomorrow'.

After almost four decades of obscurity, a unique collection from the oeuvre of the Dutch photographer Sanne Sannes (1937-1967) comes to light again. That this collection of rare vintage work from the Sannes Estate (curator Rob Sannes) shall again be available for an international market is an opportunity for Dutch photography.

About the photographer:Sannes, during his brief photographic career in the sixties, became renown for his taste for the erotic, his fascination with women and approach to seduction. His timeless imagery recalls the atmosphere of the sixties, which acted as an impulse both for his models and for his own super talent in photography.

After his untimely death at the age of 30 in a car accident, with only an eight year photographic career of innovating art, Sannes oeuvre is still on par with internationally acclaimed Dutch photographers such as Gerard Fieret and Ed van der Elsken, who in the sixties defined Dutch black-and-white photography. That Sannes earned his merit in the world of creative photography with his keen and intensely poetic eye regarding women, shall be obvious to contemporary viewers. Sannes explores aspects of sexual passion. Jim Hughes, editor of 'Camera 35', wrote: "Sannes, a controversial Dutch photographer, did not make easy photographs. Certainly, he did not make pretty photographs. I'm not even sure he made photographs. He made explorations of people, of their outsides and their insides, and sent back picture postcards of their psyches."

Sannes work is better known through his publications, one of his best known books being 'Sex a Gogo'. More provocative than most books of nudes in its day, it remains a fantastic period piece even today. It was his second book, published posthumously in 1969. His first book, 'Oog om Oog'(Eye for Eye) a notable work in the Dutch beeldroman (photonovel) tradition, had been published a few years earlier. 'Sex a Gogo' was much more light hearted, a Pop-Art sexual manual, complete with psychedelic collages and cartoon speech balloons. It was heavily influenced by the many underground¹ magazines that were a feature of the 1960s culture/scene. Parr & Badger wrote in The Photobook, A History, Vol. I: "The book's montages were devised by its designer Walter Steevensz, who took over the project when Sannes died, and it is his vision as much as the photographer's that is evidenced in this typically 1960's comedy of sexual mores. Yet however comical, Sex a Gogo never allows us to forget about its erotic intentions.

Sannes described his approach like this: "There are many men who'll never see a woman in ecstasy. They change from one thing to something else completely different. Human emotions are my subject matter. I photograph people. They're what interest me, obsess me. I want to know what pushes them to do what they do. I don't look for them in the street; I don't do random photography. I direct them and record the moment they open up and become naked. I chose the most emotionally charged moments, the point of no return. I'm fanatically zealous!

"Photographer Anna Beeke posed for Sannes and describes him as a "voyeur and provocateur, adding that he was like a boy who'd got old too soon and was never free of the obsessions that preoccupied him"

"Note: FOAM_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam will organise an exhibition about and with the work of Sanne Sannes in 2009.

PhotoQ’s Multimedia: Wolffensperger over Sannes (4 min 14 sec) & see also the (Dutch) Books of Nudes by Alessandro Bertolotti ... & the movie by Sanne Sannes Dirty Girl ...

Lees verder Achter een beregende ruit; De erotische foto's van Sanne Sannes ... & verder ...