I’m a huge fan of Joel Meyerowitz and as soon as I saw reviews of this book: “Joel Meyerowitz: a question of color” I ordered a copy. I have to say that I was quite disappointed.

Before I explain why I’d like to explain what it’s about. Essentially, it’s in two parts: First, a text part where Meyerowitz provides an overview of how he started in photography and how his photography has evolved since then; and second, a series of photographs. The photographs are in pairs: two shots of the same subject, one in black and white and one in color. In this part Meyerowitz provides examples of the differences between black and white, and color photography. More of the book is taken up by the photographs than with the text. Since it’s mostly photographs it doesn’t take long to read it. When I read it today it took me about an hour and a half. Of course, if you spend a lot of time studying the photographs it might take longer.

Now, why was I disappointed with the book. First, Meyerowitz merely presents the pairs of photographs without any comments. I would have thought that he would have given his opinion on, in any given pair, whether the black and white works best (and why) and vice versa. I didn’t find this long collection of pairs of photographs to be particularly interesting. Maybe the point of it was to show that color photography and black and white photography are different, but both have their merits. If so I (and I suspect many other photographers) don’t need to be told. We already know.

Second, and most importantly I already have a truly excellent book by Meyerowitz called “Joel Meyerowitz: Where I Find Myself: A Lifetime Retrospective”. This is a much larger, and more expensive book, which unfortunately covers pretty much all the ground covered by “A Question of Color” and much, much more. So, I was disappointed that I spent my money on a book that really didn’t tell me anything the I hadn’t already discovered in “Where I Find Myself” (for my thoughts on that book see here.)

This is not a bad book. In fact, for many it might be a very good book, but for me it was just a waste of money. I can heartily recommend “Where I Find Myself” though.