[Raffwal]

Fontan, I've seen that book mentioned several times but have never actually read it. I think I should.

What other photography books would you guys recommend?

In addition to the basic photography tutorial books, my only actual photography book is HCB's The Modern Century (was lucky enough to see the exhibition last year). Oh yeah, I have Capa's War photographer as well, but it's more like a semi-fictional autobiography.

[Ratmagiclady]

funny you should mention that RML, repaap and i were just discussing the need to make hard copies for archival purposes on the single in april thread. i advised customers of that all the time and am horrible about doing it myself.

Yeah, I've still got one foot in analog, and despite finally having enough backups, reformatting SD cards still feels uncomfortably like 'burning negatives.' Someone finds *this* stuff in the attic in a century, it'll just be a lump of plastic, though.

I don't like *any* system that depends on a lot of things going right all the time, (Never mind this rather overstacked data-age. ) and never meeting with malice at that. Digital imaging just lacks resilience that way.

[eddie1960]

I am thinking its time to review and print a bunch at 4x6 or 5x7 and stick em in a box

[magkelly]

It's one of the books I have permanently archived on DVD then sent the dead tree copy on to my local library just to ensure that they have one copy in the system. Excellent book, IMHO. If I was teaching a photography 101 class I'd definitely put it on the "suggested" reading list.

[Fontan]

Fontan, I've seen that book mentioned several times but have never actually read it. I think I should.

What other photography books would you guys recommend?

In addition to the basic photography tutorial books, my only actual photography book is HCB's The Modern Century (was lucky enough to see the exhibition last year). Oh yeah, I have Capa's War photographer as well, but it's more like a semi-fictional autobiography.

I think that all photographers ought to read at least once, not necessarily to accept it as gospel but for the sake of being exposed to different ideas.

Also, there is a book called "Basic Critical Theory for photographers" by Ashley de Range. It is a complilation of essays, including one on Sontag, and I found it stimulating.

It is time better spent than pixel peeping, for instance.

[Fontan]

Interestingly, it's one of the most-photographed times in history, but the presence of *hard copies* is probably smaller than it's been since the Civil War.

I for one print and archive not everyone but ones that I think are "keepers," often at different sizes. I think that until you print, you have not completed the "process.". Printing itself is an entirely different art form.

[Fontan]

On Photography and The Complete Photographer by Andreas Feininger are the two best books ever written about photography.

Ah, forgot about Feininger. Much agreed. If I remember correctly, a bit of a tougher read than Sontag. Nonetheless, it is a must read for all of us.

[stevebrot]

Like a few of the above posters, I have read a few of the essays and should probably find the book to read the rest. (Library???)

In a word...Excellent!


Steve

[Fontan]

Wasn't it in On Photography that Sontag pontificates about how cameras were invented by men to get women naked or some such?
I need to dog out my copy and read it again.

If I remember correctly, I think she said that thinking of camera as a phallus is a fantasy. She didn't think that it was a good way to get to someone sexually, because there has to be a distance between a photographer and a subject. Yet, photography cam reveal, trespass, intrude, manipulate, or even assassinate one's character, but with a certain degree of distance . . . .

[Jools]

Sorry read the Sontag drama many years ago but never felt it mattered for much.
She was just stating the obvious.
Just go out and take pictures.

[Fontan]

Sorry read the Sontag drama many years ago but never felt it mattered for much.
She was just stating the obvious.
Just go out and take pictures.

Don't be sorry! It's cool. Certainly you are not the first one to accuse Sontag of stating the obvious to earn a buck, although I didn't get that impression from her dramas.

I did go out and took pictures last night, until 1am. Boy was it cold last night in SF.

[cardinal43]

Eh, no. The title is called "On photography." I first read it about 15 years ago.

Yeah, sorry, it finally dawned on me later. DOH!

[Fontan]

Yeah, sorry, it finally dawned on me later. DOH!

It's cool. She has been dead for a while. Multiple myeloma. Yikes.

[Ratmagiclady]

Wasn't it in On Photography that Sontag pontificates about how cameras were invented by men to get women naked or some such?
I need to dog out my copy and read it again. (Wheatfield)

The fact is, of course, that some men do and did love to use the notion of photo shoots to indeed try and get sex. It doesn't seem as bad these days, but then again, getting older has its privileges, among them being getting a lot fewer of those sorts of come-ons.

I think part of the idea there is to try and get someone to lower the barriers that clothing represents in this society (Which tends to rather oversexualize nudity in the first place, if you asked me.) as well as just kind of getting some kind of charge out of it all. (Or they just like the photos themselves, that's hardly unheard-of.) I'm sure there's a fantasy about scamming in that way, but, for most people being in front of the camera is just not that kind of experience. (Even if they're thoroughly comfortable with their sexuality, really.)

You can probably see how it all gets a bad rap that way, especially when people are predisposed to think there's something 'dirty' about it in the first place. (I always used to get requests for some sessions of, well, call em 'intimate portraits' probably very much cause I don't, yet people can tell when there's not a lot of aggression there.)

Photography as a hobby used to have a certain voyeuristic element, too, which has perhaps been made a bit redundant by television, well, showing more, and the Internet and all, but which was still on people's minds a lot at the time.

I think in current times, it's different: a lot of the negative associations of and anxiety about photography that once seemed to be centered *on* things like changing social and sexual mores have moved on to things like being neurotic about notions of terrorists casing targets and kiddie-chasers and that a big camera tends to be an uncomfortable, nagging reminder of how little *privacy* we have in today's world.

I often reflect how it used to seem that whenever there was a camera in play or even a local newscast, there'd be a crowd there *just wanting to get on TV or be like, 'Hey, I'm *here!'* Even when it hardly would seem exactly apropriate to the occasion) As if people felt buried and needed to be *seen,* ...nowadays, if you look at those local newscasters, unless it's an occasion of like sports or band fans, people are *not* there.

Cameras seem like general impositions, now, even if you're standing under a street-surveillance camera connected to Gods-know-where-when-it-comes-down-to-it. And, while I understand the need to protect kids these days, it's *damn* inconvenient in a world where it seems the kids are the ones with the really unguarded reactions in this general landscape, and you're always, thinking, "Dammit, there's the story in this scene right there."

Anyway, where that connects to all this is that feminism and reactionaries were kind of involved in this tension between old repressive 'modesty' standards and still-being-negotiated senses of *maturity* one has to have as a society if one wants that society to be *liberated* about these things... A lot of this was part of the times, just as what's going on now is part of *these* times. Sex and society, fear and propriety... At the time of Sontag's writing, a lot of this had to do with particular kinds of *boundaries:* I think for a lot of older feminists, particularly lesbians, the idea of *men* taking the occasion of general sexual liberation to take certain attitudes about it wasn't something they had in mind. Short skirts, remember, were considered *liberated,* which was a very popular move among those not scandalized by the 'liberation' of it. There was some reaction, there, (Not to mention certain abuses coming more to the fore) and I think that had a lot to do with the whole 'phallic symbols everywhere' thing, cause there really was, and still is, a lot of pretty boorish behavior about it: in some regards it was a transitional stage between certain inhibitions and proprieties holding people back, and really respecting each other in ways we tend to take for granted nowadays.

If I remember correctly, I think she said that thinking of camera as a phallus is a fantasy. She didn't think that it was a good way to get to someone sexually, because there has to be a distance between a photographer and a subject. Yet, photography cam reveal, trespass, intrude, manipulate, or even assassinate one's character, but with a certain degree of distance . . . .

Heh, that's an amusing thing. I got really tired of people seeing phallic symbols *everywhere,* decades ago, that's for sure. I think any such relationship between dudes and their cameras is a bit more complex than that, really, (though there's definitely some expression of masculinity going on there for some. A gal could become pretty aware of when it comes to how some dudes would talk about 'what's a suitable camera for a woman,' *then* you start hearing notions of '***** envy' and the like, (put on a tele and there you are, funny, no one calls my wides a yonic symbol. ) and there's of course a certain number of men who wouldn't *touch* certain models of Pentax cause a pink version *exists.* ) It's kind of more like how they are about cars and weapons, so there's a bit of a linkage there, but... not so simple, really.

Anyway, there was a certain amount of being hung up about 'phallic symbols intruding everywhere' among some of the older guard of feminism, but I suppose it was easier to feel threatened at the time, and I gather that Sontag wasn't *advocating* that so much as addressing it.


As for stating the obvious, we're photographers: we're all *about* making a statement from obviousness.