The Street Photographer needs this library
We talk often what books a street photographer should have at home. I already posted a list on the small guide to street photography on this blog. In this post I want to propose an essential list. It is the basic of the study for a street photographer:
Photographic Theory
The Photographer's Eye - John Szarkowski (ucd library link)
The Nature of Photographs - Stephen Shore (ucd library link)
The Genius of Photography - Gerry Badger (book plus BBC Documentary Series) (ucd library link)
Camera Lucida - Roland Barthes (ucd library link)
On Photography - Susan Sontag (ucd library link)
Ways of Seeing - John Berger (ucd library link)
The Ongoing Moment - Geoff Dyer
Photograph as Document
American Photographs - Walker Evans - texts by Lincoln Kirstein (ucd library link)
Walker Evans: The Hungry Eye - Gilles Mora & John T.Hill (ucd library link)
Atget - John Szarkowski
Changing New York - Berenice Abbott, Bonnie Yochelson (ucd library link)
A reflection on urban landscape
Silver Cities:photographing American Urbanization 1839-1939 - Peter Bacon Hales (ucd library link)
Street
Bystander: A History of Street Photography - Joel Meyerowitz & Colin Westerbeck (ucd library link)
Life is Good and Good for you in New York: Trance Witness Revels - William Klein (ucd library link)
A Way of Seeing - Helen Levitt, with forward by James Agee
The Man in the Crowd - Garry Winogrand
Street and Perception
The Americans - Robert Frank, introduction by Jack Kerouac (ucd library link)
Uncommon Places - Stephen Shore (ucd library link)
Urban Landscape
American Prospects - Joel Sternfeld, Andy Grundberg, Katy Siegal
Perpetual Mirage: Photographic Narratives of the American West - May Castleberry
Culture
Wilson, E. (1991) The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder, and Women. London: Virago Press
Wilson, E. (1985) Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. London: Virago Press
A note: The photo on this post shows the book Joel Meyerowitz: How I Make Photographs - Laurence King Publisher (link). I strongly recommend this book. It is a easy reading, essentially a manual containing a lot of tips and inpiration directly from the experience of one of the best street photographers of ever. I identify very much with his photography and with his approach, always respectful and very focused on people.
