Richard's Notes

This is a portion of my art book collection: a variety of photo books by famous photographers. I love these books and I’m starting to browse through them again.

New York in the Forties
Great Feininger book of black and whites of New York City as it started to really bloom. Note: Dover has interesting books, inexpensive, useful.

How to Wrap Five More Eggs
Photographs of traditional Japanese packaging. As much about form and function in Japanese packaging as studio photography of interesting small objects. This is the sequel to the famous How to Wrap Five Eggs (below).

Worlds in a Small Room
A collection of Irving Penn portraits of people from the world over, all shot in a studio setting: Parisian bakers, gypsy families, Hell’s Angles, etc.

The Writer’s Desk
Jill Krementz’s great book on how writers write with photographs of their writing spaces.

Autobiography
Sol Lewitt’s photographs of all sorts of stuff (the collection’s Gestalt being the autobiographical part), each in a square (like flickr) laid out in a grid. An inspirational collection and montage.

Voyage of the Eye
Brett Weston’s fantastic black and white photographs in the tradition of the greats but in many ways, even better.

Born into Brothels
A relatively new book done by Zana Briski documenting her project giving cameras to the children of women in the red light district of Calcutta. An amazing book and everyone in our group should have it. Check out: http://www.kids-with-cameras.org/home/

Ansel Adams: Classic Images
The title says it all. This is one you all should have if for nothing else, to have all of this stuff under one cover.

Issey Miyake
Irving Penn’s photographs of this famous Japanese clothing designer’s work. Penn is one of the greatest all around photographers in history who got his start doing commercial fashion photography. This book is incredible.

How to Wrap Five Eggs
Photographs of traditional Japanese packaging. As much about form and function in Japanese packaging as studio photography of interesting small objects. This book is out of print and rare. I’m delighted to have a copy. Maybe my granddaughter will sell it on eBay to pay for a term of college some day.

Irving Penn
This is a retrospective collection of many of his photographic styles: flowers, fashion, famous people’s portraits, etc. The book to have if you’re a Penn nut like I am.

Within the Stone
Bill Atkinson is one of the fathers of the Macintosh computer who is both a brilliant programmer, designer, research scientist, and photographer. When he retired from working in high tech he took up his passion for nature photography full time. This book is a collection of photographs of cut stones (not thin sections) that are lapped smooth. The book is super high quality, beautifully printed and costs $40 which is a steal. If you buy directly from him he’ll autograph it for you. He has copious notes on the making of the images and his printing process. Highly recommended: www.billatkinson.com

In the American West
A fantastic collection of Richard Avedon’s portraits of “regular” people in the western part of the United States. This is a fabulous study in portraiture and one of my favorite Avedon books. Richard Avedon recently died but The New Yorker still prints his images from time to time.