Product Description

The concept for this book is simple: 500 photographers, 500 pages. Arranged alphabetically, each of the photographers--from contemporary Dutch cameraman Hans Aarsman to mid-century New York shutterbug James Van Der Zee--gets a full, oversized page. On it is a large, expertly reproduced image and a concise caption packed with information about the photographer and his or her work. The coincidental alignment of photos of different eras and aesthetic sensibilities provides unusual and exciting contrasts that add an extra dimension to readers' perception of the work. Rineke Dijkstra's color-saturated shot of a bikini-clad beachgoer in South Carolina faces a Mike Disfarmer portrait of a rural Arkansas couple in 1943. Imogen Cunningham's inimitable Nude is here, along with a more surprising image--My Mother, Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire, a color-photo collage by painter David Hockney. With iconic photographs like Alfred Eisenstaedt's shot of a sailor and a nurse kissing in Times Square on V-J Day, historic ones like Larry Burrows's shot of wounded U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, and pop images like David LaChapelle's picture of a bodybuilder posing amid a cluster of little boys aping his stance, the scope of this visual encyclopedia is truly epic. And with its incredibly low price tag, there's no better value out there for fans of photography.

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Product Details

Publisher	Phaidon Press
ISBN	0714844888
Format	Paperback
Author	Editors of Phaidon Press
EAN	9780714844886
Label	Phaidon Press
Edition	Midi ed
Dewey Decimal Number	779.2
Studio	Phaidon Press
Number Of Pages	512
Title	The Photography Book
Publication Date	2005-05-01
Manufacturer	Phaidon Press

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Customer Reviews

What exactly are you looking for?

Review by AfghanDon, 2010-08-23

First of all, the book is about 6 inches tall. My sandwiches are bigger! And the font size is about 4 so it's kind of hard to read. Now, that being said, it is very informative if you want to know the history of photography and you want the "implied meanings" of the photos and "what the artist was trying to convey". It has really helped me fall asleep on several nights.

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Best one-book history of photography

Review by Joseph L. Kashi, 2010-03-23

This is an excellent and inexpensive one book history of photography that includes about 500 images ranging from the very earliest days of photography through the present. Each page contains a separate image by an influential photography along with explanatory text. This is definitely the first creative photography book to buy.

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Depth of field

Review by Jean E. Pouliot, 2009-12-29

What do you get when you collect one great photo each from a century and a half of talented photographers? You get "The Photo Book."

Each page of this fascinating books contains a full page copy of terrific photography. The greats and well-knows are here -- Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier Besson and Richard Avedon all get a page. Notorious and iconic pictures are included too, including Edie Adams' photos of the execution of a Vietcong soldier and Nick Ut's shot of Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. The pictures in the book are by turns serious, comic, touching, whimsical and sexy. A short paragraph brings the reader's attention to the historic and artistic elements of the photos. It's almost a guarantee that, unless you are a photo historian, you will not have seen 95% of the images in the book.

Note to parents an gift-givers: there is some male and female nudity in the book, but nothing pornographic.

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amazing collection

Review by Rose, 2009-12-21

An amazing collection of photographs and photographers! The descriptions under each photograph are very explanatory and insightful to the historical context, highight important details, and expose the intention of the photographer.

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Fantastic Book!

Review by Beth R. Mattocks, 2009-06-14

This book is fantastic for anyone interested in Photography!! Truely worth buying! Even great as a coffee table book!

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