Photo Books that Changed My Perspective

I’m sure you’ve heard other photographers mention how important photo books are so I don’t need to sell the idea to you but just to simply to agree with that mantra, because photo books have been such a huge inspiration for me over the years. A good photo book gets you thinking about photography in ways that just looking at a screen doesn’t. Photography, printed and sequenced with intention and designed with detail is photography on a whole new level.

As you can tell - I think they’re important, so let’s now go over a couple of books with examples that I’ve really enjoy.

Autofocus - The Car In Photography

I bought this a few years ago in Waterstones: It completely stopped me whilst browsing and I found a chair to sit and flick through for about 30 minutes before releasing I should just buy the book and take it home.

This book gets me thinking and it’s not about the cars but about the environment in our photographs and how the details we might not consider important actually affect the overall image.

The car is obviously one of the biggest innovations of modern times, it has drastically reshaped our cities, landscapes, even the economy but it’s also had a huge impact on culture. This book "Autofocus" doesn’t show off car photography, but instead photography that includes cars… and there’s a subtle difference.

This book is full of different projects from a range of world class photographers over the century that give an insight into how photographers used the car in their work to help tell different stories.

This is one of my favourites in the book and I think represents uh why I like it so much very famous image from Robert Frank and I'll just quickly skim through this caption at the side through his cameras viewfinder Frank aligned a number of seemingly unrelated elements of this foggy London Street Scene into a coherent picture in the foreground the open door of a hearse frames the grainy form of a rubbish collector while on the opposite side of the road a running child is reflected in the wet pavement the solid black bulk of the vehicle stands out against the soft grays of the row of houses which fade almost to white as they are swallowed by the fog one of the reasons I love this image is not only because the hearse looks good yes compositionally it's nice we've got the black contrast the white this is a photograph not about the hearse the hearse just features in the photograph to amplify it and a lot of the photos in this book follow this theme it's not about the car it's about how the car affects the image and I find that really interesting.

It could just be a natural progression in my photography or reading books like this (or a mix of both) that I now pretty much always consider the details around my subjects that could possibly play a role in adding story and context and I don’t mean just for compositions, placing this here or making shapes with that object or using layers. But actually how the small details we don’t notice at first can in a way complete the photograph. For the examples for this book, we’re focused on the subjects, but the nature of these cars casually being placed or sliding in frame adds further details that helps us understand so much more about the photograph.

That’s what this autofocus book has taught me, don’t discount the little details that add context.

Matt Stuart - All That Life Can Afford

I actually only bought this book recently but it’s been on my list for a very long time. I remember coming across Matt Stuarts work in 2020 I think and I dove into as much of his work as I could online, so even though I didn’t own the book until now I’ve seen almost all the photographs before. But photography really doesn’t have the full impact until you sit with it physically.

There’s 2 editions of this book, 1st edition printed in 2016 a grey cover version and this red cover version. All that life can afford was then re-printed in 2020 as a grey version and as a red version again but this time Matt resequenced but also removed and added a few images. So the 2nd edition is slightly different to the first. After I discovered the differences I wanted to wait and get my hands on the 1st edition. Because it’s not as available and feels like an original, it intrigued me more. The only issue is that it’s not exactly a cheap book. I’ll let you do your own research.

This book is so much fun to flick through. Matt essentially features the everyday quirks, and unexpected moments of life in London over a period of about 13 years. Something I love about this type of street photography is how a lot of the moments we see and especially in this book wouldn’t inherently be interesting, until you turn it into a photography.

Look at image below for example. (cones matching houses of parliament photo) The back of a truck and houses of parliament - two separate subjects existing in their own way, compose the 2 together so the cones almost match the towers, combined with the words ‘management systems’ the scene has a whole new meaning to it. Those 2 separate subjects now work wonderfully together.

This type of photography keeps me on the look out for multiple elements that at first glance appear to be separate but then adjusting by my perspective to see if they could possibly work together and become something more. It’s a reminder that what you see isn’t always exactly what you get, we have the power to mix and match within our environments. The ability to work stuff together into one cohesive frame is challenging but so much fun to at least try.

This book not only celebrates the spontaneity of street photography but somehow, Matt has made central London appear somewhat colourful. When a lot of people think of London, it’s grey, it’s dark and mostly cold. But there’s a really nice use of colour and energy in this book. It’s definitely a feel good read that encourages me to go out.

Paul Graham - A1 The Great North Road

This is Paul Grahams first book and was originally published in 1983, it was then republished nearly 40 years later with a few things added like a foreword from Paul and this is the version I got my hands on. As you could guess this project is entirely about The A1 road here in the UK.

This book is a mix of landsapes, portraits, interiors, still life - it covers the broader idea of social documentary and it seems like whatever Paul noticed on his travels up and down the road that caught his eye, he was able to share how those moments looked but also how they felt.

Although the A1 is technically still a main road, the photographs feel quiet. The cafes and petrel station being used my workers and lorry drivers seem to exist in there own time and space. Because I never literally saw life like this personally, I only have old UK films and TV for references but it’s still not quiet like how I thought. I’m not entirely sure how to articulate it but I find almost every single photograph in this book, very interesting and it’s the every time I pick this book up, I take my time with it.

Paul Graham used a large format camera for this work, so that gives you an idea of the type of thing he was lugging around and setting up for these frames and every single portrait in this book was a staged, agreed upon photograph except, for the very first street image taken outside Bank of England. TOP DOWN: In this scene with some city professionals and a women in a blue coat working wonderfully with the blue tie flipped over the guys arm. Not only is this a really good photograph regardless but I cannot imagine setting up a large format camera and tripod on a busy bank of England street. I think it’s a brilliant image to start the book.

There is a fantastic video all about Paul and his work on YouTube by the Louisiana Channel which is how I discovered Pauls work. Definitely give it a watch.

Quickfire Round:

The Creative Act - A Way Of Being by Rick Rubin

This one of the most interesting books I’ve read in a long time and I honestly think every creative person should read it. Rick Rubin is renowned for his work in the music industry, but in this book he makes references that anyone doing anything creative can resonate with.

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

This book all about the creative process, emphasising that nothing is truly original and that all artists and creators are inspired by the work of others. The book is designed to be a concise guide for interested in the world of creativity.

The Framelines Mag

This quarterly street photography magazine is created by Josh Edgoose and Shane Taylor, I’ve picked up almost every one of their copies now, it’s full of interviews with photographers lots of brilliant work being showcased in each edition and it’s just generally a fantastic way of consuming street photography. I don’t know about you but I’m scrolling less and less on instagram nowadays. I typically use it for my DMs and I’ll have a quick flick through the stories to see what people are up to so having a somewhat regular magazine curated with great street photography is so refreshing.

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Thanks,

Mike