Book Update

Happy to report that in the previous book sale with Yale University Press, you (the collective "you") bought 416 copies of Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography, 148 copies of Lee Friedlander's Family in the Picture and 139 copies of his In the Picture.

A question for you, just because I'm personally interested: do you have anything in your photo book library that could constitute a mini-collection within the collection? I think book lovers / book buyers tend to do that. I have a poet friend who finds he has gathered, without deliberately intending to, a large number of different editions of Dante. The excellent bookseller Andy Moursund of Washington D.C. and environs has a magnificent photo book collection (I've never seen it), but it is particularly strong, he tells me, in books featuring New York City. I could see a street photography aficionado gathering a nucleus of titles about street photography, which have proliferated over the past few years. I personally have a little half-shelf of books of snapshot photography. I don't know why, really...it's just that each time I find out about one, it seems to want the company of the others.

In any event, thanks to everyone who bought a book in this sale; I hope you're enjoying your purchase!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Bill Mitchell: "Mini(?) collections of Strand, HC-B, Weston, AA, and Leica-associated people and things."

Edd Fuller: "While my collection ranges far and wide, I do have a 'mini collection' devoted to railroad photography. There is a large body of work by very accomplished photographers who have explored railroad subjects, from O. Winston Link to David Plowden. Of course, railroads interest me, but I generally find work driven by a single subject—baseball, sailing yachts, architecture, bridges, etc.—particularly compelling."

Joe in L.A.: "I'm not sure this is what you are looking for, but, while I have an eclectic mix of photography books, I just noticed that I have an entire shelf of those featuring National Geographic photographers. I just can't resist their work and the stories they tell!"

Andrew: "The best-represented photographer in my modest collection is Martin Parr. I have most of his monographs, a couple of collections and some of his writing too (the three-volume photobook history with Gerry Badger). Just got on a Parr kick at a time when I was ravenously purchasing books."

Nigli: "My collection is heavily weighted to Czech photographers: Sudek, Drtikol, Koudelka, Streit, Tichy, Mucha (better known for his paintings). Another sub-collection would be books I've found out about here."

Speed: "My mini-collection is of books offered for sale by TOP. Photo books are expensive enough that I'm not inclined to buy from Amazon sight unseen. And today, aside from TOP and your so-far excellent recommendations, Amazon is it."

Mike replies: Well all right!

William Schneider: "I taught in a department that offers photojournalism among its majors. Each year, we'd have three or four notable photographers visit and present their work to students. Often they would have a book signing afterward. My mini-collection is photojournalism as a result of this."

JG: "I have a few sub-collections in my modest photo book collection, but the largest of them are books by the photographers included in the 1975 New Topographics exhibition in Rochester. At last count, I had 37 New Topographics-related books, including a copy of the original exhibition catalog. (In case you are curious, George Tice and Gerry Johansson are tied for second place.)"

mike plews: "Mrs. Plews and I both like Wright Morris a lot. I'm a photographer and she is an English major so it works out pretty well. We have assembled a collection of his photo books, novels and short stories."

Barry Burris: "I have a subset of my normal collection that is just different editions of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Maybe two dozen different editions, specifically several annotated editions. I have read the book at least a dozen different times during my life and have yet to read the same edition twice.

"And for reasons unknown to me I keep all my Keith Carter photograph books separate from all my other photography books (100+). Nick Brandt's book are kept separate also, but this is primarily due to the disparity in the sizes of each book. In both collections I keep all the books I have not yet read, and in the case of photography books, spent at least several dedicated hours looking at, separated from all the rest I have read. Guess which stack is always growing faster. In the words of the late Warren Zevon...(paraphrashing): 'We buy books thinking we are also buying the time to read them.'"

Mike replies: I also have a number of editions of Walden. My favorite is a tiny little reprint of the Oxford World's Classics hardcover, the one that's four or five inches high. But now we're off topic!

Rodger Kingston: "I built a major collection of Walker Evans publications—over 2,000 books, periodicals, posters, and ephemera—which I sold as a collection in 2011. Now I find that I've re-accumulated 50+ Evans titles, a number of which were sent to me by authors and publishers I've been helpful to over the years. Also, I've accumulated 50+ books on Edward Hopper. Both of these artists have been a big influence on my own photography."

Mike replies: I've heard of many collectors who continue to collect after the major collection is sold. It seems there is always some residual energy left over from the effort!

Steve Jones: "My photography book collection started relatively late in life, so I’m still just trying to get the basics. However, when I collected records, I primarily centered on 1970s Bowie, Elvis Costello, the Clash, and the Sex Pistols (five different versions of 'Never Mind the Bullocks,' for which my brother berated me as being anathema to the whole point of punk).

"It’s interesting that you pointed out 'don’t know why,' because while I was an absolute Bowie freak, the other concentrated efforts, particularly the Clash, just seemed to manifest subconsciously, as I certainly could have made a greater effort with, say, the Ramones. I actually don’t buy ‘to collect’ these days—it’s all much more utilitarian—but I’ve since discovered that the fleeting production of certain photography books (including ones that I’ve bought due to your intervention: Jason Eskenazi’s Wonderland and Edward Weston’s Life Work for example ) invariably become collectibles.

"Now that I think about it, 'Mike’s Recommended,' which includes the latest offering, has a pretty solid presence among my photography books.

"And while living in Tokyo, I picked up a disproportionate number of Daido Moriyama books—an embryonic mini collection perhaps. Just to note, perhaps no other country in the world caters so splendidly to collector fanaticism than does Japan…God bless them!"

Mike replies: I used to have a whole case of CDs marked "Kimfluence," since they were all recommended, or mentioned, or given to me, by my ex-DJ friend Kim Kirkpatrick. But now we're off-topic....

David sauro: "I've recently been collecting Paul Caponigro and John Sexton books. An amazing education!"

Michael Meyer: "About two thirds of my photo book collection is composed of contemporary Korean photo books. Within that focus I have several of what you might consider mini-collections. The publisher Noonbit has been publishing its 'Noonbit Collection of Korean Photographers' Works' series for several years now. I have the initial set of the series but have not been able to keep up with the pace at which they release new sets. I also have numerous books from small presses such as Corners and Datz Press. Of individual photographers, my shelves feature a number of books from the prolific Seung Woo Back, though by no means everything he's published, and a number of books from curator Suejin Shin, whose work I admire immensely. I started a blog several years back about the books in my collection, www.koreanphotographybooks.com, written from an (informed) enthusiast's perspective. It's been a wonderful way for me to engage with the books."

Peter Marquis-Kyle: "This mini-collection might not qualify for the photo book label, but I seem to have a lot of biographies and autobiographies of photographers (including Sally Mann's wonderful Hold Still that I heard about on this blog)."

Marcelo Guarini: "This is funny. I'm not a poet, but I like to read and (try to) memorize beautiful poems. In my poetry book collection I have nine different versions of the Dante's Divine Comedy. Today I'm able to recite a few parts in the original Tuscan dialect; it flows like beautiful music.

"Regarding my photo book collection, the only mini-collection is of Michael Kenna books. He is not one of my favorite photographers, so I think is because his books are beautifully presented (i.e., Japan, covered with red silk, and Hokkaido with real wood covers)."

Comments

[Ken Tanaka]

Congratulations on the successful sale, Mike. I suspect Yale is delighted, too.

Do I have a book collection specialty? Good question. Yes, come to think of it, I guess I have a few. The one that jumps forward first is Japanese photography, especially post-war. This was largely the result of several years spent studying for the project that would become the Provoke show I mentioned in a comment to an article last week. (Comically, I cannot read some of them. )

[John Cranford]

I probably have more Stephen Shore books than anything else. In an ideal world, I'd scoop up William Eggleston's multi-book editions of The Democratic Forest, Los Alamos Revisited, and Chromes.

[Jackson Bart]

I live in a small apartment, and don't have enough space to collect any sort of books. I threw out most of my books the last time I moved. It was sad throwing out so many books. After that, I made a commitment not to acquire any more physical stuff, and so far I've kept pretty well to that. So I'm sorry that I'm not a customer for photobooks.

This does raise a bigger philosophical question about photography, whether photos really need to be printed, or whether photos exist just fine as a stream of ones and zeros.

[John Krumm]

Does two count as a collection? One of the reasons I bought Friedlander's family book is I really like another photo book I've had for years, called Flesh and Blood: Photographers' Images of Their Own Families. I can probably add Sally Mann's memoir to the group as well, even though it's mostly text.

[Christopher May]

I have a fair number of railroad photography books in my library but I've got a complete collection of the books of the late Don Ball, Jr. I've also started adding signed copies and various editions of the titles that had multiple printings.

When I was young, my father introduced me to the hobbies of railfanning and photography. After receiving my library card, I promptly proceeded to look into books about both subjects with a special focus where they intersected. My local library had a copy of America's Railroad's, the Second Generation by Mr. Ball. I wish I knew how many times I checked that title out. It must have been at least several dozen.

Interestingly, I always seemed to gravitate towards the work of other photographers that Mr. Ball featured in that particular title. While I liked Ball's photos, I loved some of the work of Don Boyd and T.J. Donahue. Much later, however, I discovered Rails and Railroads which featured Ball's work exclusively. Additionally, they featured a more artistic approach to railroad photography than his previous works, which were of a more documentary flavor. I doubt that any pair of books has caused a more emotional reaction within me while I paged through them. I was all at once incredibly joyed to find these somewhat forgotten treasures (Rails and Railroads are among the lesser known volumes from Ball), ashamed that I had so underestimated the author's photographic abilities and incredibly melancholic to think that Mr. Ball passed away at the young age of 48.

Much of Ball's work was something of a lament over the loss of the steam locomotive and the eventual acceptance of the diesel. I'd be curious to see what his take on modern railroading would be. Since his passing in 1986, the caboose has disappeared, the number of Class 1 carriers have dwindled to a handful, motive power has become far more homogeneous and railroad signalling is likewise becoming incredibly similar due to PTC requirements being imposed by the government. I've heard more than one railfan bemoaning the current environment. Indeed, I'm often tempted to join in their chorus. Whenever I feel that way, though, it's easy enough for me to pull out one of Ball's books and remember that the railroad environment has always been changing. Learning to accept current changes as Ball accepted the change from steam to diesel helps me to see what is possible. Railroading is still a dramatic and fascinating industry to photograph. And that is precisely why my Don Ball, Jr. collection is one of the prizes of my personal library.

[Benjamin Marks]

My photo books are a little like my music; eclectic and more notable for what they lack than the jumble of stuff they contain. Pop music after about 1980? Nope. Ansel Adams? Nope, or at least not recently. Friedlander, Argentinian Polka (don't knock Los Hermanos Cardozo until you have tried them), Hass, Miles Davis, Gregorian Chants, Mel Torme, and Irving Penn? Yup. Eric Whittaker, Joni Mitchell, Richard Avadon, Nicholas Nixon? Yup. Head spinning yet?

For me, what unites these things is a desire to be taken out of myself by the work: that eclat of forgetting that my knees hurt because I see or hear something amazing. If the work is constantly demanding that I confront it . . . it stops being fun. I remember (or even am distracted) my knees (or whatever). So I tried some Eggleston, I really did, but I never had that feeling of "I want that on my wall and want to see it every day." One of his books is around here somewhere. Shallow? Maybe. Or perhaps this is how we develop taste? I'll be interested to see what others respond.

BTW, I organize my photography books by . . . (wait for it). . . size. Yup. All the tall books together, all the shorter ones, and so on. Hey, they all have to fit on the shelves and my carpentry skills and available shelf space (an increasingly scarce commodity around here) do not play well with the random (if useful)category of alphabetization.

[Jeff]

I've been collecting photo books (and prints) for several decades, including a good subset of very fine condition first editions, some in multiple languages. Among these is a fairly comprehensive set of books by Strand and Kertesz, two of my favorites. And thanks to you, my Strand collection just increased by one, a well produced overview.

[hugh crawford]

Out of hundreds of photo books, I seem to have a LOT of Friedlander's books even that Cray one that was never sold, also a lot of the "new topographics" and Dusseldorf School. I also have a lot of portrait books by Avedon, Penn, and that big boxed set of the complete August Sander. I swear they were cheap when I bought them! except for the Avedon/Baldwin and Avedon/Capote collaborations that I got at an auction. Seem to have a lot of Eggleston, including three copies of the the first version of "The Democratic Forest" but I can't remember how that happened.

The rest are mostly conceptual or questioning the nature and meaning of photography with a few overlaps like Arbus, Winogrand, Ed Ruscha, Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan (the Mike Mandel and the Larry Sultan shows at SFMoMA are outstanding by the way, went yesterday}

So I guess taken as a whole they are about what photography means as opposed to what the individual photographs mean. The Mandel, Sultan book "Evidence" is kind of an extreme example, I mean what the hell are some of those photographs of anyway?

Oh, and can I plug my big book project here?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hughcrawford/some-photos-of-that-day-book-jamie-livingstons-pol

or click on my name down there

[John Sarsgard]

The Strand book is good enough that you don't really need more of his than just that one. Collections...yes, I am making a street photography collection. Please find a hidden treasure trove of Garry Winogrand books and have another book sale.

[Geoff Wittig]

Coincidentally I just inventoried my photo book collection two weeks back, as our adult kids were visiting and we were ruthlessly culling the house of all their stuff along with anything else dumpster-worthy.

I was mildly surprised to find it stands at close to five hundred titles. Perhaps 80 of them we summarily tossed because they were obsolete digital technique-oriented books. The rest could be divided into mini-collections.

The biggest chunk of my library is comprised of individual monographs, heavily weighted toward landscape photography. And I guess I do have an organizing principle. The great majority are carefully composed and crafted intimate landscapes that extract formal beauty from chaos, particularly forests. So I have pretty much everything in print from Elliot Porter, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Christopher Burkett, Charles Cramer, Bruce Heinemann and the like. Also a smattering of European work on the same subject, like Michael Lange's exquisite Wald. I also have a pretty sizable collection of prairie landscape photo books, which is an esoteric subset.
To my surprise, I have also accumulated a substantial collection of post-modern, deadpan landscape monographs by folks like Jeff Brouws, Stephen Shore, Todd Hido, and everything in print by Edward Burtynsky. The common thread remains formalist pictorial beauty that transcends the chaotic or even mundane subject matter. The latest is a monograph on Buffalo's decaying giant grain elevators, American Chartres by Bruce Jackson.

Looking through my library I also noticed that I have too many books that I don't like very much. Most of them I think struck me as important to a collection of photo books, but they just don't do anything for me. This includes monographs on Richard Avedon, Dave Heath, and a goodly number of other icons whose work I just don't get. I probably should bite the bullet and 'de-accession' these.

[hugh crawford]

I used to be Larry Williams assistant doing a lot of stuff for Rolling Stone and CBS Nashville. Often I would trip the shutter, focus and load while he moved the lights around because it's surprisingly hard to tell rockstars turn their head into the shadow.

Once we shot a cover for Charly McClain out in Montauk and after I spent an hour driving the car back and forth to get the blurred tail lights, and in fact all the lighting except for an on camera vivitar 283,

I shot off the end of the roll for clip tests (120 film so tails out) with Larry wrapping his arms around the artist. CBS liked the clip test so much that they used it for the back cover and changed the LP title to match it.

CBS wanted to give me a photo credit but they couldn't without paying* me so for the next few records the gave me an assistant credit which was pretty unusual at the time.

Photos "stolen" from ebay, but if they want to bug me about copyright......

*pay was terrible anyway but they would pay for anything you could get a receipt for within a week of the shoot

[Bri]

My Vincent Munier and Michael Kenna books seem to be increasing, much to the detriment of my decreasing bank balance...

[James]

I've been buying up photobooks with a textual component for awhile now. It started with Paul Kwiatkowski's and every day was overcast (one of the standouts), and includes Rosalind Fox Solomon's Got to Go, Nick Nostitz's Patpong, and, most recently, Teju Cole's Blind Spot, among many others. All in all, they comprise about 1/4 of my ~120 photobooks. I hope to one day produce a book that combines photography and text in an interesting way, and at one point, I considered these as research for that effort. Now, though, I fear it's become more of a collection.

[Harry Lew]

I suppose I'm fascinated by "the human condition" in its many facets. So I mostly photograph people and the situations they find themselves in and collect books in the social documentary, street, and photojournalistic (Magnum) traditions. Aside from that, I seem to have amassed sizable sub-collections of books about New York City (photographic interpretations, not travels) and about U.S. photographic road trips that explore American identity (Robert Frank, HCB, Hoepker, Stephen Shore, Holdt, Justine Kurland, etc.). I also buy a lot of photo books from colorists such as Eggleston, Haas, Meyerowitz, and Fred Herzog. It's a great thing having these categories to help channel my passion for photography books because they help me avoid buying books I would probably love, but would kill my budget.

[Darlene]

Books, books, books! I have way too many. I hired a contractor years ago to build bookcases into the walls of my study to maximize the space for all my books, but it does not end there. I have mini libraries of some of my favorite photographers including Michael Kenna, Edward S. Curtis, Alfred Stieglitz, Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite, and others. I have a lot of technique books too, some very outdated (polaroid techniques anyone?). And then there are lots of topical type photography books and books from photographers that are not well known, but I enjoy looking at their work as well. My collection of 50+ Lenswork magazines (I consider them mini books) is perhaps the best printing quality of all my books.

Recently I stopped buying books because I made the decision to downsize and plan on travelling for a couple of years with photography projects in mind (not your typical vlog travel stuff). In the end, the books I will miss the most are not photography books at all, but are art books. Photography books can be inspirational to me, but the art books are where I find my creative muses, and they have taught me more about being a visual artist than any other books have.

[John Shriver]

My collection within the collection is Josef Sudek. Fell in love with his work when there was an exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts! Have several of the Czech books, and newer US-published ones.

[Richard Man]

Salgado, Bresson, Eugene Smith, Mary Ellen Mark, Fan Ho are my weakness.

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

Hi Mike,
A slightly battered Paul Strand book just arrived down under in Australia this week (paid for the 4-6 week shipping option). Is there any way to pass on some "constructive criticism" about the packing? It was abysmal - oversized box into which loose bubble wrap and book appear to have been summarily tossed. Along the way someone kindly put the box into a shipping bag to stop the box being completely disintegrated from the inside out by the book bouncing around. Looking forward to working through my birthday present to me :)

The book collection - outside of the technical side - is still embryonic, but I enjoy Galen Rowell and David Ward. Sontag on Photography may be a tad out of my depth yet :)

[Fulvio Senore]

I don’t have many photobooks and I am mainly interested in landscape photography.
Looking at the books I see a number of landscape books that contain images that do not “pop” to the eye: they are quieter images and I suppose that non anybody would like them. As my wife said looking at Woodlands: “I might have taken those photos!”.

Some of those books are

Jem Southam “The River Winter” (https://vimeo.com/56903732)
Bernhard Fuchs “Woodlands” (https://vimeo.com/103810791)
Daniel Rohner “Dialog mit Mi Fu” (https://vimeo.com/208844568)

[Martino]

Do you mind posting a snapshot of "the little half-shelf of books of snapshot photography" at some point in the future? it piqued my curiosity.

[Alas, I can't, not right now. Most of my books are in storage yet, since my last move. No bookshelves in this house.... :-( --Mike]

[John]

Jim Marshall book "Proof" got me started looking for books of proof sheets. So far it's just a start though.

[s.wolters]

At the moment I am cleaning up my library. Do I have mini-collections within my collection? To be honest if I encounter a title that doesn’t fit in a group I have a problem. Maybe I should make a mini-collection of books that don’t fit in any group?
Without being aware of it I recently seem to have made a mini-collection of photography books about (ex) communist countries. North Korea, Soviet Union, East Block and so on. Here are some examples:
https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Bus-Stops-Christopher-Herwig/dp/099319110X
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nadav-Kander-Yangtze-Long-River/dp/3775726837
https://www.amazon.com/Charlie-Crane-Welcome-Pyongyang/dp/1905712049/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500660892&sr=8-1&keywords=charlie+crane+north+korea

[wts]

My local public library has a good collection of photography and art books, but a poor collection of books in another area of interest: railroad history, photography, etc. Thus I have a good collection of books in that area. Now I'm short of space so, when available, I acquire books as PDF's - unless I have reason to know a book of interest exhibits superior production values. That's why I've bought every book as a physical book offered at TOP since I started following TOP.

[Warren Jones]

I have three mini collections in my modest library, and they are mini. Two books each. The first is two books by Jay Maisel.

Two by O.Winston Link, by far my favorite photographer. While I like the history of steam railroading I do not consider myself a rail buff. I simply like Mr Links style and technical skill especially at night.

And finally I have a couple of of books by Ralph W. Andrews chronicling the work of Darius Kinsey who photographed the logging operations of the Northwest US from about 1890 to 1925 or so.

If I keep reading Top and falling for Mikes book deals that number may increase! Thanks Mike

[Ilkka]

I don't know what would count as a big collection. I have quite a few, maybe 100 in all. But usually only one or two by any one photographer.
I will also buy every photographer biography I can find. Not too many of those as I only buy from bookshops.

[Len Salem]

Like many of your readers I have small groups of books that reflect my photographic interests in various areas. But the group of which I am most aware are the pile of maybe ten or twelve as yet unread. In a weird way that's both an admonishment and a comfort.
It's an admonishment because I know I should try to find more time to read them and a comfort because of their promise of delights to come.

[Steve Caddy]

I have a very small mini collection of conflict photography. It's not fun to look at but powerful and compelling.

[Jerry Walsh]

Over the years I have collected books on the old Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the new Russia as well as books about the new Russia's near abroad. Some very good work coming out of those areas.