Hello, everyone!
We have only a few days left here in Indiana, and I'm going through all my stuff because
my in-laws are moving to a new house in a couple months
I don't want to leave a lot of, let's say shit here
that they have to move and take care of
One of the things that I'm going through right now is my photography books
I thought that I could show them to you, the books that I have
All right, so these, these 4 I am keeping for sure
This is the first one, I already showed it to you in a previous video that I'm gonna link somewhere
It's called "The Land" and it has photographs by several photographers
The photos were selected by Bill Brand, so you know they are gonna be good
I love the photography on this book, not only the image that I already talked about by Bill Brand but
almost all of them, like that one
I'm gonna show you a few more now with a little bit of music
I'm keeping that book for sure, and then I'm keeping 3 by Michael Kenna,
you know I'm a big fan of Michael Kenna
one of his latest books and my latest by him, Holga
He made all the images in this book using a Holga
which is pretty impressive because I've used that camera extensively
and I was never able to create the results that he's gotten here
the thing with that camera, is that when you get it right
there is no other camera, that I know of at least, that can create this kind of images
like this tree, for example
It's a toy camera, it has a plastic lens, but it's still medium format
it can get that shallow depth of field that you can see here
photo of this sheep with the mountains in the background
that effect that it has
focusing on the center of the frame while everything else is kind of destroyed
I like that look a lot, when it works
I wouldn't say that this is his best work
but some of these images are just incredible
I'm gonna show you a few more now
The other 2 books that I have from him are
Forms of Japan, this is my favorite photography book ever, period
all the images in this book are just beautiful, they are very minimal images
snowy landscapes, I love them all
I'm gonna show you more later
but yeah, beautiful, beautiful, minimal images in here
This is a book to go through for hours and days, and days
And the last one by Michael Kenna is this one
this was the first book that I bought from him
It's called a "20 Year Restrospective"
This is a very interesting book and it offers a glimpse into Michael Kenna's work
It shows some of his earliest photos and how he was changing over time
He started shooting vertical and horizontal
and then he changed, of course, to square
All of these are just beautiful images by Michael Kenna, this is one of my favorites
It's amazing
And now I'm gonna go through the ones that I have in this box
I'm planning on getting rid of some of these because they are pretty big and heavy
I don't love them as much as I love those 4, I want to keep a mini-mall book collection
I don't know, between 5-10 books that I really love and books that really inspire me
And the first one is one by me, this is my zine
This was my first publication that is called "Went West"
This is just a collection of 50-60 images, some of my earliest images
Some of them are good, I still like them a lot, some of them I kind of regret including them here
Overall, I think that the experience of publishing something was a really good one
I really like that photo from Wyoming
I made these photos with film cameras, with drones -like this one-. That one was taken with my iPhone
so it was a variety of images
Okay, so let's start with the rest of the books
The first one is a classic, is "The Americans" by Robert Frank
There is not much I can say about this book that you don't know already
Some of them are just history of photography, like that one
I've always loved this one, it's just incredible
Very, very beautiful images by Robert Frank
If you haven't heard of this book before
Please do yourself a favor and get a copy because you're not gonna regret it, it's an amazing book
Next one, I think I'm gonna get rid of this one. This is "Basic techniques of photography"
This is based on the Ansel Adams books: "The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print"
They are pretty good, and this guy, John Schaffer covers pretty much the same topics
that Ansel Adam covers on his 3 books
But he does it in a better way, or easier to understand
Ansel Adams was pretty good, technically speaking
And he had a lot of things to say about photography, about the technique
but he did it in a very dense way
I read all his 3 books and they have a lot of information, information that is still relevant today
but it's not easy, they are not easy to read and this one is much easier to read
It's not something that I want to keep because it's big and heavy
so yeah, probably getting rid of that one
Another one I'm gonna get rid of is this one
"Why people photograph", by Robert Adams
This is not a photography book, it doesn't have...
Well,, it does have some photos there, but it's pretty much text, this is a compilation of essays
That's what people used to do before blogs
And Robert Adams had a lot of things to say about photography
Some of those essays are compiled here, it's a very interesting book, it's a very interesting read
but once again, not something that I want to keep, because I can download an e-book or an electronic
version of this and have it in my eBook so it's always available for me to read
Okay, this is one, Elliott Erwitt, "Personal Best"
So don't get me wrong because I like his photography, I think he was a fantastic photographer
But, this book, I don't love. I mean, this is a pretty cool image, though
The thing with this guys is, his photos are pretty fun
They are funny, and they are enjoyable to look at, not like other
They are not as serious as other photographers, like this one
Look at that, it looks like the dog is in the air
But this book has way too many of them, it's way too big, it's way too heavy
And I think that a more curated collection of images would have worked much better here
So it's not completely his fault, because I don't think this is a book that he made
I don't have room for this kind of books in my collection
All right, this is one. This one is a very special one
Joel Sternfeld, "American Prospects"
I say that is rare that you see me with a book like this, because
Typical daily scenes, and they are in color
I love this book, it blew my mind when I got it
What I like about his photography is when he was taking photos of people, like this person
He places the subjects in the center and they are rather small in the photographs
offering a lot of context, and I love that, I think it's genius
Like this one, you see, they are playing football, but they are surrounded by this majestic landscape
It's all about the context
it's not about the basket, it's about where the basket is
Some of them have little details like this one
You can see, that's a rocket and here on the far right, very far right, there's a restroom for women
hopefully you can see it
You look at the image from far away and then you realize about the small details
and those details are what make the photo
This one is incredible, it looks like a normal scene, something happened
Then you pay closer attention to the photo and you realize that there is an elephant there in the middle of the road
You see this image from far away
When you look at this image from far away, you only see a boat
and then you realize that at the very bottom there is a guy fishing
This one is one of my favorites of his, this is Gresham just outside of Portland
And you can see that this is a typical scene where a family is probably moving in or moving out of this house
It's just your typical suburb neighborhood
You can see Mount Hood in the background
There is nothing else to look at in this image, right?
Until you realize right here on the very far right, there is a mom feeding a baby
So this is a keeper
All right, just 2 more to go, actually
This is the first one, "Photographers Sketchbook", examples of how photographers manage
or handle their materials, their notebooks, their drawings, their notes about where to go
what to do, you see this guy uses maps and Street View
journals or something where they write everything that happens to them during their trips
It was an interesting concept, but I don't like the book that much, I didn't get much out of it
This one has to go
And the last one, by Trent Parke
and when I said earlier, the first book that I showed, The Land, that I wanted to be like those photographers when I grow up
I was actually lying a little bit because I want to be this guy
This book is incredible, it's called "Minutes to Midnight"
Some of these images you might call disturbing but they create an emotion in me
Let me show you what I mean by that
This is so cool, the mood in these images is incredible
Most of them are blurry, some of them are not in focus, and that helps to create that mood
They are very grainy too, I think these were made on film but I'm not really sure
You see, he took photos of dragonflies as well
something I've been doing this summer
Photographed some roadkills, too
Such a cool image, it's so powerful like this
I don't like making portraits, but I love looking at some of them
andthis must be one of my favorites
Look at that, I'm pretty sure that he did something to this image in post or in the darkroom, but still, it's so cool
the concept is so cool, his idea
One very similar to Robert Frank's
He plays a lot with your imagination, like this one
This little kid is watching TV, but you don't know what he's watching
And it looks almost like a terror scene, or it depends on how you look at it
It could look like some other things, I guess, so he plays with that
It looks like a wave at first, but then you realize it's just the dust from the car
It's what I said, almost disturbing, almost terrifying, but I love it
When you look at that horse, you can't just look at it and ignore it
Very, very grainy images. This looks more like ET
Here they are cooking a kangaroo, a baby kangaroo
Which is crazy, as I said almost disturbing in a way
That's a dead kangaroo
I like his aesthetics, his technique here is just sublime
It's something that I really want to add more into my photography as well, so this one is a keeper
Okay, so the ones that I'm keeping:
"Minutes to midnight" by Trent Parke,
"American prospects" by Joel Sternfeld,
Michael Kenna, "A 20-year retrospective"
Michael Kenna's "Forms of Japan"
his "Holga" book as well
"The Land", by let's say Bill Brand, and
"The Americans" by Robert Frank
So that's... one, two, three, four...
Seven, seven books and I think that is a pretty good amount of books for a collection
This is my American collection, it's the collection of books that I'm gonna keep here in the US
As you know, I'm building another one in Europe that I keep there at my parents' house
I only have 1 book so far, by Sebastiao Salgado
I talked about this in another video that I'm gonna link around here
That's an amazing book that I actually want to go back to soon
I really recommend all of these books that I'm keeping here
I love all of them, they are amazing. You won't regret it if you get a copy of these books
Just wanted to share my little book collection, please please please share your
recommendations, your favorite photography books in the comments down below
I'm looking to add maybe another couple of books in the near future to this collection
So I would really appreciate if you left some recommendations in the comments
Thank you so much for watching again, and see you in the next one