Daido Moriyama – Record

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An exceptional selection of photographs by Japan’s leading photographer from Record, the artist’s self-curated journal, published in the early 1970s and from 1996 to the present day. It has 230+ pages, 50+ in color. There’s a short (five page) introduction by Mark Holborn.

Inspired by Japanese photographers, as well as by William Klein’s seminal photography book on New York, Daido Moriyama moved from Osaka to Tokyo in the early sixties to become a photographer. He became the leading exponent of a fierce new photographic style that corresponded perfectly to the abrasive and intense climate of Tokyo during a period of great social upheaval. Between June 1972 and July 1973 Moriyama produced his own magazine publication, Kiroku, which was then referred to as Record. It became a diaristic journal of his work as it developed. Ten years ago, after a decades-long interval, he was able to resume publication of Record. Now this book collects work from all thirty published issues, edited into a single sequence, punctuated by Moriyama’s own text as it appeared in the magazine. After this volume was produced, Moriyama continued with “Record”. Subsequently, a second volume, the direct sequel to Record was created and called Record 2. This volume presents a selection of photographs from Daido Moriyama’s magazine publication Record, from issues 31 to 50 and spanning 2017 to the present.

The book is exceptionally well made. The reproduction of the photographs is of very high quality, and the whole book is contained in a slipcase.

If, like me, you’re a fan of Moriyama’s style (grainy, high contrast, not always ultra sharp images) you’ll love this book).

The Decisive Moment

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I’ve always been a huge fan of Henri Cartier-Bresson and I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of “The Decisive Moment” for some time. Unfortunately, it’s quite rare and extremely expensive – more than I wanted to pay. So, I was very pleased to discover that the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation had re-printed it:

The Decisive Moment (Images à la Sauvette in French) is one of the greatest photography books ever published. It brings together photographic material from the first twenty years of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s career.

Images à la Sauvette was published in 1952 by Verve, with an original cover by Matisse. It was the result of a collaboration between the photographer, the famous art critic and publisher Tériade, and the painter, at the peak of his career. The American version, published the same year by Simon and Schuster, was the first to introduce the now-famous expression “decisive moment”.

The book, which reveals the intrinsic duality of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work, the combination of intimate interpretation with documentary observation, received tremendous critical acclaim within the art world and is considered a “bible for photographers”, in the words of photographer Robert Capa. It remains an essential reference for photographers to this day.

The original book, now out of print, has become a collector’s item. The Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson sought to make this classic photography book accessible again, in a smaller and practical format, at an affordable price. The latest print features the same material as the original 1952 edition and is accompanied by a comprehensive study of the book’s making, its enduring popularity and the considerations behind its title, written by Clément Chéroux, Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Most of the book is taken up by Cartier-Bresson’s wonderful photographs. These are preceded by a short (14 page) introduction written by Cartier-Bresson where he presents his views on photography. I’m sure that when the book was published this was absolutely fascinating, but I’ve read a lot about and by Cartier-Bresson, so it didn’t tell me much that I didn’t already know.

To me the most interesting part of the book (other than the photographs, many of which I had not seen before) was Clément Chéroux’s piece: “A Bible for Photographers” described above.

The book is much smaller than the original, nor is the printing apparently as excellent (or so I’ve read somewhere) as in the original. Despite this I’m glad that I bought it.

A Walk to Crawbuckie Preserve and Back – A Bookstore

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By this time my feet were really bothering me. Luckily my favorite local bookstore was within easy walking distance, and I could sit comfortably in an armchair or a sofa and read for a while until my feet had recovered enough for me to continue on home.

It’s called Hudson Valley Books for Humanity, and I’ve posted about it before (See: A Walk through Ossining – A Bookstore).

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Needless to say, I ended up buying a photography book: Jacques Henri Lartigue. The Invention of an Artist. This is a small, local bookstore and it doesn’t have a large collection of photography-related books. I had just watched a YouTube video where Lartigue was mentioned. At the time I remember thinking that I didn’t have any books on Lartigue and that I should get one. Coincidentally, I unexpectedly bumped into this one. This is the second time this has happened to me with this bookstore.

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Taken with a Sony RX10 IV.

Photography: Essays and Images

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The back cover of the book provides the following, which describes the book better than I possibly could:

This handsomely illustrated volume presents a fascinating pictorial and literary experience, bringing to life through their own words – and photographs – the scientists, artists, philosophers, innovators and entrepreneurs who in the last century (Note: the book was published in 1980) and a half have formulated a new art and a new era of communication.

Beaumont Newhall calls this book “an autobiography of the art of photography, written by some of the men and women who by their inventive genius, their scientific skill, and their artistic sensibility have forged a technique into a vital visual medium. We have allowed them to speak to us directly, without condensing, excerpting, or otherwise editing their words, so the volume may be both an authentic source book for students of the history of photography as an art and a narrative for the general reader”.

Mr. Newhall has chosen 190 photographs to illustrate the reports, criticism, and points of view expressed by the writers of the “autobiography,” many from the photographic archive of the Museum of Modern Art, others from collections throughout the world. He also provides brief introductory comments to place each selection in historical context. Photographs and text are carefully integrated.

The selections in this volume include first-person accounts of the inventions of the basic photographic techniques; newspaper reports of the discovery of the daguerreotype and of early photographic exhibitions; criticism by Baudelaire, Léger, Moholy-Nagy; personal statements from Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, Lange, Adams, Weston, Evans and others. This basic source material, presented at length and accompanied by relevant photographs, provides a rich background for the chronological history of the medium so masterfully presented by Mr. Newhall in his classic work, The History of Photography.

To give a better sense of the scope of the work I’ve scanned the table of contents (see below)

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Fine Art Street Photography by Rupert Vandervell

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I’ve been a subscriber to Rupert Vandervell‘s channel: New Ways of Seeing for quite some time and have enjoyed it greatly. I like his delivery, and I like his videos, which are relatively short and not overproduced.

So, when I bumped into his book “Fine Art Street Photography” I decided to get hold of a copy.

How did I like it?

I’d like to start with a few small comments and one rather large criticism.

First the comments:

  1. I don’t care for this use of the words “fine art” in the title. I’ve noted this before (See: Fine Art Photography) so I won’t go into it again here. If you’re interested, please read the post.
  2. The title suggests that this type of high contrast image is the only type of street photography that deserves the name “Fine Art”. I doubt that Joel Meyrowitz, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston (to name but a few) would agree with this. In fact, the book is largely concerned with the type of street photography that Mr. Vandervell favors. In his introduction he is quite up front about this. Just don’t think that this is going to be a broad overview of the various types of fine art photography because it isn’t
  3. A better title might be “Fine Art Street Photography – my way”. Seen that way it’s an interesting book sprinkled with useful insights and interesting anecdotes. Mr. Vandervell writes well and it’s an easy read.
  4. If you’re looking for a “how to” book this is not it. But then Mr. Vandervell at no point claims that it is.

And now for the criticism:

As reviewers have pointed out the quality of reproduction of the images is truly terrible. If you watch any of his videos you will see that they are very contrasty with very dark blacks and very bright whites. In the book they’re all a very mushy grey. This is a pity because his images rely a lot on high contrast and in this book, you don’t get it. On top of this many of the photographs have faint lines (from scanning? from printing?) running through them. I’d suggest avoiding the book and instead taking a look at his YouTube channel. The photographs look much better, and it costs less. The images in this book simply do not do justice to Mr. Vandervell’s work.

For a broader overview of different types of street photography, I’d suggest taking a look at “The Street Photographers Manual” by David Gibson with a Foreword by Matt Stuart.