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What photography books would you recommend?

Awesome photographer books for a photographer

  • Photographers and photography buffs! Please help me find a really cool photography book (or photography-related gift) for my photographer boyfriend. So my boyfriend's birthday is coming up. He's a photographer and I'd like to get him a really, really awesome photography book but I know NOTHING about photography. I don't even know who his favorite photographer is. I'd like to stay away from getting him another equipment related since I don't know what he has and since I know so little about photography, but feel free to recommend anything you feel might be super awesome. My budget is around $100. He mainly photographs nature and inanimate objects. For example one his projects focused on photographing branches of trees that have become intertwined with metal fencing. He's currently working on a project where he goes out into a local area along a river where many homeless people live and has been photographing the foliage/objects he finds/camps people leave behind, etc. He also recently bought a book where the photographer photographed ordinary looking places and then provided a paragraph explaining that something terrible had happened there (school shootings, murders, etc.). I have no idea who the photographer was. I know he's not that into portraits. So based on these things, are there any books that you would recommend? Or are there any photography books (within that price range) that are just awesome to have for any photographer in general? I'm also willing to provide a link to his portfolio site, but I didn't want to do it here just in case it turned up on google.

  • Answer:

    The photo book he recently bought might have been http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3869304340/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ by Joel Sternfeld. One of Sternfeld's most acclaimed books is http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1935202979/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/, which was out of print for a while but somewhat recently reissued. If your boyfriend likes shooting landscape scenes that combine nature with buildings and other manmade objects, he might like that.

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Some cheap options: (if he's into reading about photography) check his bookshelves for a copy of http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374532338/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ and (if he's into classic, somewhat avant-garde film) rent http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000I157KO/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ online and watch it with him.

Monsieur Caution

Your description of his work, especially of tree branches, suggests Lee Friedlander: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1891024973/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1881616754/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ More recently, Radius Books put out a http://radiusbooks.org/159/lee-friedlander-new-mexico/ of work in New Mexico from 1995 on, but like many of his great books it's out of print. Still, it's probably the most available of quality printings of his out of print books and seems to be available from third party sellers.

Lorin

Hi! I have a BFA in photography....me mail a link to his website, and I'll send some suggestions! :-)

jrobin276

Whatever else you do, you get him Geoff Dyer's book http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400031680/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/

villanelles at dawn

Maybe a book by http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Andy%20Goldsworthy&ie=UTF8&search-alias=books&sort=relevancerank He creates amazing natural art and photographs it, as the art itself is only temporary. Also, based on him taking photos of what is left behind, maybe http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3869300426/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ It is photos of buildings (some once quite grand buildings), abandoned as the population of the city dwindled.

AnnaRat

Sorry, didn't check the price on Ruins of Detroit. But there are some other similar books on the page that are more within budget!

AnnaRat

It's not a book suggestion, and I think it's really cheesy, but most photographers I know have been inexplicably thrilled to own a http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=camera+lens+mug&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Acamera+lens+mug(especially one that corresponds to their equipment brand of choice).

sawdustbear

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262518082/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ is a psychoanalytic look at crime scene photography. It's better than it sounds. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810990652/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ is an awesome book of extraordinary chickens.

Sticherbeast

blaneyphoto

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