These are Amazon affiliate links. That won’t effect anything on your end, of course.
Owning photography monographs is such a great investment and will continue to pay dividends. It will fill your visual well with all kinds of possibilities, and they are a great place to turn whenever you feel you are in a creative slump. Start your photography library today and continue adding to it all your life, little by little.
Portrait Monographs every photographer should own
Nicholas Nixon: The Brown Sisters
The first edition of this book included the first 25 years of this project. The second edition, 33 years. And this edition includes 40 years of this project.
There’s a few Arnold Newman monographs. I love this one.
There is no one else like her and I love the way she sees. This is not a portrait book but it’s so good I just had to include it. Wildly popular and sold out for a few years until they made an updated 10 year anniversary edition, thank goodness.
Doug DuBois: All The Days And Nights
A more melancholy view of family portraits.
Mary Ellen Mark has a number of great monographs, all great. This one is out of print but can still be found for low prices.
F.W. Glasier: Wild Weird and Wonderful
This is the one we looked at in class but there’s another called Circus-The photographs of Frederick W. Glasier that is a little newer.
Lee Friedlander is probably the most prolific photographer around. He has over 60 monographs so there are so many I could suggest. This one is a good one to start with and can be found at good prices, but for sure it’s worth exploring some of his other titles.
Latoya Ruby Frazier: The Notion of Family
Powerful. Documenting the economic decline of her family history. This is another book that can be found at a low cost.
His most well known monograph and the one that got him lots of attention is called Sleeping By The Mississippi. I really like this one and From Here To There
We did not look at any pictures in here when we were all looking at books, but I mentioned him a couple times and there were some of his images in the slides. He’s one of my favorites of all times.
David Hurn/Bill Jay: On Being a Photographer
This is one book I think everyone photographer should own and read. Amazon’s description says “One of the most popular books ever written with practical advice for photographers. It was out of print for a long time and the price went sky high, but it’s back in print and can be had for around 20 bucks. I mentioned this book in class when I went over the four steps to make a good picture.
Here are some that we didn’t look at, didn’t discuss but are photographers that are in that category I mentioned that are the Beatles of photography or the William Shakespeare of photography, or are just great books worth considering
Robert Frank - The Americans (Every photographer should own this book)
Irving Penn - Passage, A Work Record
Rodney Smith - Rodney Smith Photographs
Henri Cartier-Bresson - The Decisive Moment
Magnum - Contact Sheets
Diane Arbus - Diane Arbus
Elliott Ewitt - Snaps
Garry Winnogrand - Figments From a Real World
William Eggleston - William Eggleston’s Guide
There are SO many more but this is a good starting point.