Although I do most of my reading on my Amazon Kindle, I tend to prefer reading photography books in hard copy. I feel that the Kindle does not do justice to the photographs. I was in Barnes and Noble one day and felt like reading something photography related. They didn’t have very much and most of what little they had I had already read.

I’d looked at this book in the past, but since I’m not much interested in fashion photography I hadn’t bought it. I think the cover image and the title: Focus. The secret, sexy, sometimes sordid world of fashion photographers had put me off it a bit too.

But I really wanted to read something photography related, and this was the only option available, so I bought it. I didn’t expect to like it very much and was pleasantly surprised when I did.

Of course I was already familiar with some of the names: Richard Avedon (although I hadn’t realized that he was such a colossus in photography), Irving Penn (who of all the people in the book I was most familiar with), Terry Richardson (whose name I’d heard because of the controversies but whose work I was not familiar with), Helmut Newton, maybe David Bailey but most of the other names (e.g. Melvin Sokolsky, Jerry Schatzberg, Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy, Bert Stern, Bill King, Patrick Demarchelier, Pierre Houlès, Gilles Bensimon, Mike Reinhardt, Arthur Elgort, Steven Meisel, Bruce Weber, Bob Richardson) I’d barely heard of.

Of course the “sexy”, “sordid” aspects of the field come through (e.g. the author mentions the apparently enormous size of Gilles Bensimon’s penis several times). And I found the rather sad lives of some of the photographers (e.g. Ben Stern, Bill King, Bob Richardson) to be rather touching.

For the first time I know a bit about Vogue, Harpers Bazaar (e.g. did you know that until 1929 the magazine was called ‘Harpers Bazar’?), Elle etc. I know who Diana Vreeland and Anna Wintour are/were. And I’m more aware of the important role of the Art Director (e.g. Alexey Brodovitch, Alexander Liberman). I’m also rather more familiar with how fashion magazines have evolved over the years.

An interview with the author can be found at: Michael Gross Discusses His Provocative New Book on Legendary Fashion Photographers.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.