One thing I think most photojournalists have in common is that somewhere in their homes is a big shelf, or stack, or several stacks, of photo books.
I find it almost impossible to pass up a beautiful book filled with lovely reproductions of work I find inspiring. And when I’m feeling a little uninspired, sitting down for a bit with a big book of photos never fails to perk me up. Right now I’m spending evenings with a recent birthday present — Annie Leibovitz’s “At Work,” which is the perfect antidote to the unending news about the economy’s nosedive and the state of newspapers. Seeing as neither are likely to look up in the very near future, I’ve compiled a list of inspiring reads from among my favorites. Enjoy!
 |
Starting from the top of the stack, my current read. I’ve just been opening the book and reading whatever section I fall into, and have enjoyed it all. The book is organized into sections of different lengths, from discussions of individual shoots to larger discussions on topics such as conceptual pictures, which gives some background on her portraits of famous folks such as Bette Midler and Meryl Streep. The section I read last night was about group shots and it’s interesting to read how organized and pre-planned each shoot is. For a photo of President Bush and six others, Leibovitz and her team were given the exact height of everyone in the photo so the lighting and seating arrangement could be composed before hand. Many of the people she photographs give her very little time to make pictures, and so the photographs are often days in planning and setting up, then minutes in the actual shoot. I imagine it must be both steadying to have the concept and technical aspects of a photograph worked out beforehand, and challenging to know you have to make the picture work in the 10 or 20 or 30 minutes you are give to work with the subject. As someone who’s often asked to go in someplace, scope it out, light it and make a telling portrait in 15 minutes, her process fascinates me. I’d also recommend reading her “A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005.” It’s a great book and heartbreaking in places. |
| Next in the stack: “Sam Abell: The Photographic Life.” Right after this book was published, Sam Abell came to speak at the University of Missouri, where I was attending grad school. He struck me as an insightful, soft-spoken, and thoughtful person. He talked about what photographs have meant to him, both as he made them and years later, reviewing his contact sheets. His pictures, to me, mirror the quiet confidence and reflection of his demeanor during that presentation. They are a considered, integral part of his life. And this format, with the pictures presented alongside his thoughts about the images or the process of making them always remind me that making pictures is a process that is most successful when it stems from somewhere inside ourselves. |
 |
 |
Jim Brandenburg set out to make one photo a day for 90 days. One picture, no retakes and no shooting a gazillion frames (like digital photography has allowed us to do). The result is a book full of incredible nature images, and a testimony to self-directed challenges and dedication. It’s like a meditation. A meditation shared by one of the world’s best nature photographers. Simultaneously inspiring and a little bit intimidating. |
| I discovered Sally Mann’s work when I was taking photography classes at Hollins University, where I did my undergraduate study. She was a student at Hollins at some point, and somewhat legendary at the school. In part, I think all of us aspiring photographers loved how her seemingly simple pictures of her kids could convey such emotion and innuendo. Moreover, the photos are just beautiful. She shoots with a large format camera and, even in her books, the tones and richness of the photographs just pull you in. Now, I look at her work to continue to learn to create richly metaphorical images (when the situation calls for it) and also to assuage the occasional pang of “home” sickness (I only lived there 5 years) for the lush Virginia landscape. |
 |
 |
This book, which follows the stories of two gay teens in the early 90s, was shot by Rita Reed, my professor and mentor at the University of Missouri. She tackled it because she was alarmed by a 1989 study that gay and lesbian teens were 2 to 3 times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers, and also alarmed that no one wanted to tell that story. It took her 7 years to research and shoot. When I get dragged down into thinking that pictures don’t or can’t make a real difference, or that a story I think about may be too difficult to access or impossible tell, I pull out this book and think about the challenges she overcame. I wonder what I could do if I devoted the next 7 years to it and whose life I might just be able to change if I did. |
| This book is like a smorgasbord of great photography. Between its covers, Magnum photographers pick out one of their stories, talk about it, then show the images. Their styles, tastes, and topics are diverse. You’ve got weird British life by Martin Parr and war photography by Alex Majoli. And because Magnum is an international photo agency, there are images from all over the world that are influenced by aesthetics from all over the world. Most of the images are geared toward magazine publication and are therefore a little more compositionally daring than newspaper photography tends to be. Flipping through these pages gets me ready up to head out and try something new. |
 |
 |
Lastly, I got this Diane Arbus book 2 years ago for Christmas and it’s interesting to glimpse into the mind of someone who shaped the photographic world. She was a woman who was unafraid of seeing, of looking at other people. My favorite thing about this book is that it includes some of her contact sheets and notes. I go back and forth on how I feel about her pictures — although I always find them interesting, I don’t always think she was a compassionate person, which is one quality I think should be essential to a photographer. Reading her notes I get a glimpse into her life and thoughts that, for me, makes the photos more accessible. |
Those are just a few of the books I like to flip through. There are, of course, websites and blogs that I read regularly, and some of those are listed in a previous post Kris and I wrote, so go back in the blog entries to check that out.
