I’m so happy photo books exist today with all of us glued to a screen. While online sources like Pinterest or other photographers websites are helpful, I find that photo books offer more wholesome and therapeutic way to experience photography.
Maybe it’s the long form approach, or aging of the photographs that strikes a chord, but either way I think it’s important for our daily consumption. Here’s a few that come to mind as I continue to build out the collection.
Stephen Shore: Survey (2014 edition) - This was one of the first photo books I picked up three years ago and I always find something different each time I crack it open. It’s a beast (>250 pages), but is incredibly dynamic between the locations/decades and mix of landscape, documentary, and portrait/lifestyle images. The layout is really well designed but the photos themselves are powerful: it almost feels like you’re a fly on a wall in some of the scenes and the colors are beautiful. His impressive body of work always makes me want to road trip across the country.
Sofia Coppola Archive - This one caught fire back in 2023 and is well deserving. Her work as a director speaks for itself but this bts perspective of her films is so unique. I swear every single photo is a banger and almost feels like you’re on set. I really like the the Lost in Translation, Somewhere, and Priscilla sections; there’s so much mood/emotion within each photo. The images were created through a combination of photographs taken by Sofia on her Contax T3, collaborators like Corinne Day, and through collected materials from various projects.
Ernst Haas New York in Color 1952-1962 - The most recent purchase from my favorite photo book store in Los Angeles, (Arcana). I somehow wasn’t familiar with Ernst’s work but his perspective of NYC is so tasteful. His use of moody light, primary colors, and motion blur when capturing the life of the city speaks for itself and would highly recommend this for anyone more interested in street/architecture work.
Bonus: Check out this Youtube video on photo books by Sam Elkins. His collection is so solid and he does a great job explaining each one. He brings up a great point that we all should support the artists we admire and the best way doing so is buying one of their books.
Let me know if you guys have any books you’re enjoying..would love to hear.
-Kendall