Meditation #1: how to read photo books
The other day, as I inevitably gathered two huge photography books from my second favourite bookstore, Tamy asked me how I “read” photo books. A question I find more interesting is why I read (and hoard) photo books. But since I thought about the “how” for a bit longer than I care to admit, writing about it could be useful nevertheless. So here goes: how to read photo books [1]:
A small part of my photography book collection.
Just like real books, photography books are all vastly different. You’d read “To Kill a Mocking Bird” differently than Keats’ poems, and you’d read Keats’ poems differently from their biography or the poetry textbook. Photo books are kind of like that.
Koudelka’s “Exiles” or Soth’s “Sleeping by the Mississippi” feel like epic poems. You sit down to flip through the pages and take the photographs in, usually in one sitting. Forming first impressions on the photos, design or quality. The first time you look at the images, spending more time on some, and less on others. Good books like these usually convey strong emotions. Either you feel a release of emotions at the end, or, more often, you start to feel something when flipping through the pages. By the time you are done, there is a feeling of incompleteness, so you go through them again. Now you identify these common threads that nagged you the first time, look at each photo in more detail. You pay attention to the relationships between the photographs and how they are displayed. These connections form over a day or two, rarely immediately. Finally, if a book speaks to me, I will go through it the third time. This time, looking for things I have missed or feelings that were left unresolved.
Then there are what I think of as storybooks. Ash’s “Bedrooms of the Fallen”, Platon’s “Service” [3], and Harry Borden’s “Single Dad” come to mind. These feel like proper novels. They have a story of sorts, often some writing and extensive captions. These books you treat like you would treat any written book. You start, you look at the images, think about it, read the text, and turn the page. As these books can vary drastically, how deep you go into them will depend on the images, the concept, and ultimately, the story behind them. Some tell the story chronologically, some use a set of images to illustrate an issue, and for some, each image is an issue in itself. I tend to go through these more than once, but the reasons for that are largely undetermined. Maybe I liked a particular image/story. Or I feel as if I missed something.
Then there are monographs. Think of your Sugimoto’s books or Michael Kenna’s “Japan”. They do not only represent the “greatest hits” of an artist but allow them their own interpretation and presentation of their work (often subtly different than what you’d see curated in a gallery). In Kenna’s “Japan”, you’ll see more images than you need to see, but the images tell you (implicitly and explicitly) about the artist's studies of light and subject. The way you read these is usually different from those above. Usually, you go slow, page by page, marking and analysing the images that stand out. I personally never go through an entire monograph in a single sitting. Neither do I re-read it in its entirety, but mark images I particularly like or want to return to or reference at a later date. A monograph can be tied into a project (for Kenna, Japan was a project; any of Sugimoto’s monographs were separate projects too), but it doesn’t have to [2].
And finally, there are (semi-)academic books or collected works. They are monographs in themselves but are usually curated by an editor or an academic in pursuit of understanding the photographer’s entire body of work. These are peppered with analysis and critical essays, and provide much more information than simply photographs. An example from my own bookshelf would be the “Collected photo essays of W. Eugene Smith”. These books you treat like you would treat a textbook. You read through it, learn from it, and use it as a reference to learn about a particular photographer. I rarely enjoy these books, but find them invaluable for learning about the craft of photography.
Note that everything written above is in some ways wrong. There are a plethora of books walking in between these self-imposed genres. Think HCB’s “Europeans” or “Images à la Sauvette”. They are monographs, storybooks, projects, and poems all at once. Such books, you read however you feel you should. Maybe you go cover to cover the first time; maybe you revisit only the important images; maybe you record what you like and continue on. But the confusion goes further — “Bedrooms of the Fallen” tells a story and has a narrative, but is (for all intents and purposes) also a monograph. BARDO is a zine but can be read as a book. So yeah, everything you read in the previous paragraphs is technically wrong. But maybe it can serve as a loose guideline?
So there it is — here is a broad framework on how I read photo books.
Do you feel the same way? Do you disagree with something? Do you “read” photo books in a different way?
Let me know.
[1] This should really say “how do I read photobooks”. There is not a single right way.
[2] “Project” is perhaps the word I hate the most in the entire photography jargon. It can mean anything, and nothing. A project can be anything from “Telling a story of people who suffer in an unseen way” to “I shot these images on a 28mm lens”. Both are equally legitimate “projects” but I hate the fact that we use the same word for both.
[3] I chuckle when I think about all the profanities Ash will utter if he ever sees that I’ve put his book in the same sentence with Platon.
Some good resources to learn more about photo books:
Alec Soth does incredible deep dives on his YouTube channel
Matt Stuart features young and emerging photographers’ books on his instagram
