Filed under: photo
I have been going around to photographers asking them one question:
What was the first photo book that you can remember buying or seeing that really had a strong affect on you?
Here is Ben Huff’s response:

“The Flame of Recognition, Edward Weston. I received this book, my first photo book, from a coworker of my wife’s when I was just starting out. He knew something that I didn’t. I was naive, and my photographic vocabulary so limited – that book set me on my head. It redefined, for me, what photography could be. Shells, peppers, nude lovers, gas masks, Point Lobos, dead pelicans, trees, portraits – the portrait of Tina! The images, and words, were startling to me – gave more every time, and lingered long after I put the book down. The range of images within that book, teamed with Weston’s own words, which I would learn are from The Daybooks, spoke to a dedication and artistic evolution that intoxicated me. It encouraged me to keep looking – to see what else was out there.”
…linked from LBM blog here
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have been going around to photographers asking them one question:
What was the first photo book that you can remember buying or seeing that really had a strong affect on you?
Here is Eric William Carroll’s answer:
“The first photo book I can remember having a lasting impact on me would have to be my family’s photo album. I imagine my thrill upon its initial discovery was largely narcissistic, but the album played a major role in how I came to understand my identity, my past, and the formation of my earliest memories. The album itself is as thick as a phone book. The front cover is baby-duck yellow and says ‘Family Album’ in an embellished font, complete with photographs of some generic family enjoying an autumn picnic. Its thick adhesive pages were once a creamy white but have since gone yellowish-brown, a prime example of non-archival storage. The album starts right off with my birth and goes until I am about four or five years old. I think I noticed the album when I was around six, and revisited its contents once a week, experiencing what I can only imagine was a twisted sense of false nostalgia. Yes, I was six, reminiscing about the ‘good ‘ol days’. I kept looking through the album until it was memorized and I still don’t understand why I was so obsessed with it. Any way, no book of photography has affected or moved me in a similar way since. If I was to pick a commercially available photo book: Chronologies by Richard Misrach.”
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also posted on the LBM blog here
Filed under: Uncategorized
I hate to “re-blog”
But I like what Eric said here
“This use of the camera also serves as a supplemental documentation to what may otherwise be a foggy recollection. In fact, if one’s brain-memory fails (which happens more than we’d like it to), the camera-memory can actually supplant itself in the brain memory and serve as THE representation of the original experience”








