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Anonymous09/06/25, 09:48No.4465912Photography Books
How important is it to study photography through the library? What books do you recommend for beginners? What are the best photo books?
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Anon09/06/25, 09:58No.4465913
Once you have the basics down, it really depends. You gotta remember that just because information is in a book, it does not mean that it's useful, relevant, contemporary or even true. My preferred method of study is to go through photo books of popular artists I like, and then write down what I like about each picture, articulating which techniques they used and how it compliments the messages in the body of work. I find this way it helps you fit techniques into your own style moreso than just mimicking another artists whole process.
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Anon09/06/25, 10:49No.4465924
Here's some great advice from /lit/:Creativity is mostly the invocation of tropes your brain has subconsciously picked up on but you're not aware of. That's why when you have a group of beginners on a similar creative pursuit (e.g. film school) they all put out very similar shit (e.g. the student short about suicide or hitmen, the opening scene where an alarm clock goes off, the shot inside a fridge, etc.) even though they're not consciously trying to recreate the same thing, they just happen to share the same set of references that they've picked up from other places.Most of the time, people have a very narrow and unimpressive arsenal of templates to recruit from, because the human memory is really bad for art. Memorizations requires repetition over time, so even your "passive" memory needs to see something several times before you can use it, which means more often than not you're just writing things that are so cliche and predictable that your brain has learned to emulate from constant exposition to it.This is also, btw, why a lot of people consider drugs a good creative enhancement. The same way people under the influence often see or remember things from their past that they had completely forgotten about, they also start using things that their memory has sort of buried because it was not seen as frequently as the stuff closer to the surface, so the odds are that it's a lot more unique.
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Anon09/06/25, 11:19No.4465930
>What books do you recommend for beginners?
On Being a Photographer(chapter on subject is essential) by David Hurn>What are the best photo books?
My favorite photographers/photobooks:>A Hunter by Daido Moriyama
>William Mumler
>Ravens by Masahisa Fukase
>Eugene Atget
>Drum by Krass Clement
>Paris by Night by Brassai
>William Mortensen
>Edward S Curtis
>Emmet Gowin
>The Eye of War by Dieter Keller
>Last Cosmology by Kikuji Kawada
>The Pond by John Gossage
>Joan Fontcuberta(early work)
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Anon09/06/25, 19:11No.4466021
This thread is off to an interesting start, thanks anons.
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Anon09/07/25, 10:53No.4466176
>How important is it to study photography through the library?
I got all my inspiration to pursue photography from watching cinema and that's still where I get a lot of inspiration for framing. I don't like people to look at the camera for this very reason. My advice is to watch movies a lot.
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Anon09/07/25, 10:57No.4466177
I also got a lot of inspiration from art books, especially Van Gogh and Picasso. You will have different tastes but, when you find an artist whose work you like, devour it.
>Good artists copy; great ones steal.
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Anon09/07/25, 12:59No.4466197
This is one of the best threads in the catalog right now. There are lots of photo books from famous photographers available online as PDFs for free if you're willing to download them from sketchy Russian sites. Very interested to see the suggestions from other anons.
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Anon09/08/25, 09:11No.4466406
>What books do you recommend for beginners?
Used ones. Most of the books that Hedgecoe wrote were pretty decent, especially given that you can usually find them for next to nothing at used book stores; the Photographer's Handbook covers everything from the basic operating principles of cameras to darkroom work and his specialized books are hit-and-miss. Practical Landscape Photography is excellent but I wasn't impressed with his book on nudes.Worth noting is that pretty much all of them assume you're going to be using film, though. Lots of information in there about doing random crap with film that's been the domain of digital-post processing for decades now and on top of that there's nothing about DOING said digital post-processing so your mileage may vary.
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Anon10/05/25, 09:29No.4472700
>How important is it to study photography through the library?
If you want to become a slop producing instagrammer it's fundamental.If you still want to have your own individuality, just take photos
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Anon10/08/25, 19:11No.4473494
Vitamin Ph was a good book.
The Polaroid book by Taschen.
Civilization: The Way We Live Now.
The Dusseldorf School of Photography by Gronert.
Photography: The Whole Story.
Bill Brandt by Thames and Hudson if you want to shoot Black and White.
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Anon10/08/25, 21:20No.4473506
If you're going towards the mirrorless world, almost all books are useless, unless it's about comprehending light and composition imo...
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Anon10/13/25, 01:17No.4474389
>Depth of Field
TUTORIALS: DEPTH OF FIELD
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm#google_vignetteUnderstanding Depth of Field: How Focal Distance Affects DOF, Visualized
https://petapixel.com/2015/03/09/understanding-depth-of-field-how-focal-distance-affects-dof-visualized/Depth of Field Calculator
https://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.htmlLearn Zone Focusing and Hyperfocal Distance in Street Photography
https://www.streethunters.net/blog/2014/09/03/learn-zone-focusing-hyperfocal-distance-street-photography/Hyperfocal Distance Table
https://www.photopills.com/calculators/hyperfocal-table
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Anon10/19/25, 03:03No.4475925
I really liked Stephen Shore's "The Nature of Photographs". It was actually a rec from an April /p/ thread I think. Anyway I knew most of the stuff since I had been shooting/learning for months. But I still liked its comments on framing and focus. I recommend borrowing the hard copy, if possible.
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Anon10/19/25, 03:10No.4475926
you are more than welcome to look at non-photo art books, go to a museum, talk to a creative friend. Composition, storytelling, mood, etc. runs through ALL the arts...