Book Review : Steve McCurry, Joe McNally, Ying Ang

Had some nice deliveries from the Book Depository over the past two weeks or so.  We love a flat package in the post.  Two newish books and one oldie but a goodie.

In the newish category I looked through the new book by Steve McCurry (he of the "Afghan Girl" fame amongst many other things) called "From These Hands : A Journey Along the Coffee Trail".

Its a great collection of environmental portraits of people and communities from countries that make up the majority of the coffee production for the planet.  Being an avid caffeine consumer I couldn't pass up the by line and its well worth the purchase in my view.  The portraits are unmistakably Steve McCurry in stye of course, and the environments in which he captures really add to the story telling of this very manual labour intensive life.

Full single page portraits with a single text naming the country in which it was taken is the totality of narrative in this book, but the images tell several coffee related stories all at once.  Hardship, joy, pride, stress, sweat, tears, beauty, hope, and desire are all captured in the frames in brilliant colour profiles that pop off the pages.  The images where the actual beans get a look in are equally as compelling.

The quality is as you would expect from this Magnum photographic professional.  The cover feels like its recycled paper made in to a very strong outer cover, as do the dividing pages, with a very distinctive textured look.  The photo pages are great quality and feel, and make all the images look even better.  

Its a great story, and apparently he took well over 4 decades in documenting its pages. Well worth it.

In a totally different story telling mode we go into the world of Ying Ang, or more specifically, in to her view of the Gold Coast in Australia.  Part David Lynch, part Twin Peaks, and part photo journalism, this book is a surreal story of the Gold Coast and the lives it effects within its boundaries.  I will not declare too much about it as it is better left to the viewing.

On the presentation side this is one of the best presented project portfolios I have seen for a while.  Bold pink thick cardboard sleeve with a cutout covers a really nicely textured black and white zig zag strobe effect book.  It immediately sends your eyes and brain flicking, which may be the cinematic intention I don't know. But it trips you out.

Then Page 1 you are met with a run thru of the "screenplay" A Tale of Unexpected Menace.  And off you go ..... 

Surreal photos of Gold Coast suburbia and cheap trash and domestic menace follow.  Some of the pages are 1/3 extra gate sleeve style which gives the image great effect whenever its used. As narrative all you get are street locations, suburbs and /or times of day.  Until right at the end where an additional "photocopy" style leaflet is included of some actual Gold Coast newspaper articles supporting the mystery and skullduggery of the photographic project.

Intense, surreal and very very cool.

And finally in this posting, a portfolio/instructional book that is fairly old in the tooth, but could be well worth the read again for many. 

As the back cover states, Joe McNally's The Moment It Clicks has "one foot on the coffee table and one foot in the classroom."

First printed in 2008, like I mentioned it is an oldie - but a goodie.  If you ever want to know how to throw around a lightbox, or learn some three letter acronyms to impress artificial light junkies, this is for you.

The "coffee table" part of this book are the images - really strong, fantastic images.  Then, accompanying every image on every page, Joe gives content and colour to the frame and how it came about, and then a real deep dive in to the technical components of the image and in particular how the lighting was constructed much of the time.

Joe mixes great technical capability with the power of story telling very effectively so you never really feel too bogged down in equipment or technique. That said, it does drop a lot of acronyms (all explained) in particular around lightbox components so you need to get through all of that, but Joe also counters this with numerous practical and composition based tips and insights which continue to inspire read after read.

This book doesn't quite float my boat as I tend to only use natural light outside most of the time, but that shouldn't stop anyone who wants to learn from a true master of the art and craft.

Book Review : The Photography Workshop series of books by Aperture

Its great to buy a photography book, new or old, with no expectations and then upon reading, wonder how you ever took a photo prior to reading it.  Not that books suddenly make all your average photos turn in to great ones of course, but I find they do focus you on to what does work and what doesn't.  Books and research help you improve your self filtering, your own critique methods, and by default, raise your own standards.   Photography books are generally of two types - educational/functional or portfolio based.  Portfolio based are great to just view a favourite or challenging photographers' body of work or specific project.

The educational and functional books can also frustrate the hell out of you - by being too detailed or esoteric; or too vague and floaty; or just plain boring.

Having recently re-read the aperture series of Photography Workshop books, I think these are one of the best mix of both formats - educational and portfolio - that I have come across.  And more importantly they deliver in spades on great images and great insight and education content.

(Aperture is a not for profit photography foundation that links photographers with their audience through print, online, and in-person).

The general format for all four books in the series is on each page there is a photo, and then the particular guest photographer talking about broad concepts of photography mixed with some specifics about the photo being shown.  That's it.  Some times the comments are lengthy and involved, other times they are light and soft.  But put together it all works so well towards inspiring and educating the reader that you rarely feeling like putting the books down.

Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris are just so creative in the way that they explain their photo as it relates to street; Mary Ellen Mark is clearly a great teacher as well because her comments about her photos are so clear and thoughtful and accessible; they all just work really well as a read and reference material.

In the interest of Buy Books Not Gear living, I have really enjoyed reading and using these books and hope to use them again and again.  Highly recommended.