Well, it just turned midnight in sleepy ol' Wisconsin, and I just wanted to wish all our friends around the world a prosperous and peaceful 2010. I hope it's a good year for you and your family.

And for your photography, too.

Sincerely,

Mike
(Thanks to Bob Rapp for the link)

Here are the ten books that were the most popular among readers buying through our U.S. and U.K. Amazon links in 2009.

It's not easy to count, but I would guess that you—a collective "you"—bought roughly 5,000 different titles in 2009. By far the lion's share of those titles sold between one and ten copies each. A few, however, mainly because of reviews we published, far outpaced the average.

Don't think, however, that we can necessarily drive sales on purpose. Some of the books I "plugged" in 2009 didn't do well with readers. To give you a concrete example, of the four books I recommended two days ago, on Tuesday, Thomas Ruff's jpegs sold six copies, and First Light sold 54 copies. Your collective taste and interests play a big part in what does well.

In general, less expensive books tend to sell more than more expensive ones; technical books tend to sell better than picture books, because they're seen as being more practical and taste plays less of a part; and there are some cultural variations: Simon Roberts' We English and Jane Bown's Exposures sold much better in the U.K. than in the U.S., and books of U.S. western landscape photography, beloved of Americans, generally leave European readers unimpressed.

The number of copies sold follows each title. The number should be considered approximate, because I got lazy and did not check sales of these titles from Amazon Germany and Amazon Canada.

The list:

1. Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski (Museum of Modern Art) (U.K. link) (466 copies purchased). By far our best-selling title, probably because I named it as one of my all-time favorite photography books and the "basic primer" that I think anyone who is seriously interested in photography should own. A fine, simple, discursive introduction to the history of accomplishment in the medium, effortlessly (and painlessly!) incorporating a great number of accepted critical principles, and providing a de facto object lesson in how a great connoisseur approaches fine photographs.

2. Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom (2nd Edition) by  Bruce Fraser and Jeff Schewe (Peachpit Press) (U.K. link) (203 copies purchased).

Gary Stochl by Peter Thompson

3. On City Streets: Chicago, 1964-2004 by Gary Stochl (Center for American Places) (U.K. link) (138 copies purchased). Brought to your—and our—attention by Ken Tanaka, this modest little book was extremely popular with our readers. Gary Stochl worked for many decades in complete obscurity before being discovered and championed by photographer Bob Thall of Columbia College Chicago.

4. Landscape Beyond: A Journey into Photography by David Ward (Argentum [U.K.] / Aurum Press [U.S.]) (U.K. link) (136 copies purchased). 

Greenberg Gallery's Eye Mind Spirit marked the 100th anniversary of White's birth

5. Eye Mind Spirit: The Enduring Legacy of Minor White by Minor White, Peter Bunnell, and Nathan Lyons (Howard Greenberg Gallery) (134 copies purchased). Now out of print.

6. Light: Science and Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting (3rd Edition) by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, and Paul Fuqua (Focal Press) (U.K. link) (118 copies purchased). Longtime classic that is probably the top-ranking basic text about the fundamentals of lighting.

7. Minimalist Lighting: Professional Techniques for Location Photography by our friend Kirk Tuck. (Amherst Media) (U.K. link) (116 copies purchased in 2009). The only repeat champion on this year's list, Minimalist Lighting was also one of 2008's top sellers.

8. The Printed Picture by Richard Benson (Museum of Modern Art) (U.K. link) (114 copies purchased). Our Book of the Year 2008. A great basic introduction to the many types of photographic prints and reproduction methods, notable for its abundant illustrations. 

Erwin Olaf, The Hallway, 2005, featured in PHOTO:BOX

9. PHOTO:BOX by Roberto Koch (Thames & Hudson [U.K.] / Abrams [U.S.]) (U.K. link. Note that you have to search "Photobox" in the U.K., with no colon.) (91 copies purchased). A particularly fine—and inexpensive—sampler of excellent photographs by many different photographers, with commentary of a surprisingly high standard. Translated from the Italian.

10. Photowisdom: Master Photographers and Their Art by Lewis Blackwell (PQ Blackwell) (U.K. link) (77 copies purchased). Another, more sophisticated sampler, featuring more "hot right now" photographers, who made their own selections from their own work. The most deluxe of the books on this list, and a good bargain for the asking price.

Hard to know when to stop the festivities—the next ten titles on the list are as interesting as these. But we gotta stop somewhere, and I'm a base ten kinda guy. Happy New Year's Eve to all, and please drive carefully tonight whether you imbibe or not!

Mike

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By Joe Cameron

Just wanted to add a contrarian view to the book value vs. book use discussion. Probably will gain me the wrath of thousands and possibly even get me banned from TOP for six months (book lover that Mike is).

I am a believer that books should be used, and by "used" I mean alongside a pot of dark coffee or perhaps a bottle of cheap Merlot (heavy stainers, both). And handled a lot!

I am amused by those who keep their newly bought books sealed in the original shrink-wrap or even paper dust jackets. Reminds me of families I knew in the 'fifties who bought high-quality upholstered chairs and then sealed them with thick plastic slip covers. A Maserati, if driven long enough and hard enough (because you love cars and you love to drive) will fall apart, regardless of care and maintenance. All things decay in time, and faster the more they are used.

Shown here is a photo of three books I highly value—Walker Evans' American Photographs (1938 edition, covers separated from book), Robert Frank's The Americans (1969 edition, cover missing) and Rene Burri's Die Deutschen (1962 edition, cover separated). All were in good to excellent condition when I acquired them. But years of loving (yes, loving) viewing in my hands and friends' hands and the hands of hundreds of students in my photo classes have given them the look of age. I never thought twice about tossing these and many other books in the center of a classroom table and encouraging students to "have at it" with some magnificent and inspiring photographs—no white gloves here. Don't get me wrong, I always asked students to treat the books with care, but as I said, time and use and more than a few grubby fingers have left their marks. I have no regrets. To paraphrase an ad, books may increase in market value, but the images are priceless. And images are fundamentally meant to be shared. I might add that the photographs in these books are just as clear and accessible today as they were right off the press.

By the way, if you've never seen Rene Burri's Die Deutschen, I would suggest you try to get access to a copy. Its format is nearly identical to The Americans and, in my opinion, much of its photography is the equal of Frank's book. And if you were my neighbor, I'd gladly share it with you over a six pack and a plate of nachos.

Joe

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Featured Comment by Neil "The Wheel" Clarkson: "A closed book teaches no one."

"Photography is a journey
-with no conceivable destination."

(from "HBB in Phoenix, Arizona," a participant in the Nikonians Forums. Amen, brother.)

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Featured [partial] Comment by Mark Hobson: "The quote has the profound sound of a deepity—a statement that has two meanings, one of which is true but superficial, the other which sounds profound but is meaningless."

I know, probably the exact wrong time of year for this post, what with many peoples' pockets and purses depleted by the holidays. You know what they say: oh well.

Not long ago I got an email from a reader who said he'd come into a little windfall and wanted to pick up some photo books he'd missed, including TruthBeauty, an exhibition catalog from a show of Pictorialism at the Vancouver Art Gallery that Geoff reviewed a while back. The book is now out of print. Although there are probably better bargains out there if you look hard enough, used copies on Amazon are going for a low of $60 to a high of $262.28, and new copies start at $245. When we reviewed it, you could buy it new for $37.80.

And that was not even a year ago—February of this year to be precise.

I need to point out (again) that I don't buy photo books as financial investments, and, despite the stock-market language in the title of this post, I don't recommend them as such. The only concern I have with photo books appreciating quickly in value is that they can price themselves out of reach; what you can afford new at one time might be much harder to swallow even a year or two later. The example I always use is Roth's Book of 101 Books, which I wanted (and still want) but which was "too expensive" at $110 or so when I saw it new. So I held off. Now look at it. (Although, note, these prices are much lower than they were about 14 months ago, when the cheapest used price was in the $900+ range.)

And, of course, I can't guarantee that any particular book will appreciate in value. I'm happy to predict any event that will happen beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this—I'm willing to tell you exactly what will happen in 2110, for instance—but, for events closer to now, I disavow any crystal-ball-gazing ability. You'll recall I thought Saul Leiter's Early Color was in the "get it while you can" category, because of the first printing's spotty availability and its very volatile pricing early on, but then the publisher ran an evidently much bigger second printing and you can get it new to this day. (Still a great book, of course.)

Anyway, all that said and clear and set, here are three books I think are hot buys right now and are likely to get harder to come by in the future:

  

South East by Mark Steinmetz

Mark Steinmetz, of Athens, Georgia, is undeniably a rising star of art photography thanks to his eloquent recent books; the slightly earlier companion to this one, South Central, is out of print, and its price is rising. 

Witness Number 6 by Lee Friedlander

Lee and Maria Friedlander's affectionate portrait of Armenian-American sculptor Raoul Hague (born Haig Heukelekian in Constantinople) who lived the fully examined life in a cabin in upstate New York, is the sixth in Nazraeli's "Witness" series, earlier numbers of which are getting devilishly difficult to obtain. Witness Number 7, pairing pictures by the poet of darkness and abandonment Todd Hido with Leon Borensztein portraits from the '80s, is also still available. Earlier numbers, good luck.

jpegs by Thomas Ruff (U.K. link)

One of a celebrated coterie of students of Bernd and Hilla Becher that includes Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, and Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff has become one of the leading lights of German art photography. His jpegs is the culmination of a monumental project that looks like it will be remembered as an early milepost of the digital transition. There is also a much more expensive limited edition version.

•     •     •

Finally, though perhaps not in the art-hothouse category of books whose value is likely to rise, I got next year's delightful handmade calendar from Charles Cramer the other day (thanks very much, Charlie, if you're reading this!), and he mentioned that the book of Yosemite landscapes he did with Karl Kroeber, Scot Miller, Mike Osborne, and Keith S. Walklet from their show at the Ansel Adams Gallery has been selling like crazy and is almost gone. If you want it, better not count on a second edition. The book's called First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite's Wilderness. Here's the U.K. link.

-
(If you can't see this video, please go here.)

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Featured Comment by Jeff: "I agree with the philosophy of buying books because you love them, not for the investment. But, after a few decades of collecting, I'm amazed at the appreciation of some now much-sought-after books.

"When I bought from book dealers, I always kept the purchase price penciled inside. I have some books that are marked under $100 that would now fetch many thousands.

"Nice to know, but I still love them and have no intention of selling. It is smart, however, to get a collection appraised from time to time, if for no other reason than to maintain sufficient insurance.

"If one is interested in investment, however, it's of course important to keep the book...and the cover...in great condition. A book with a damaged or lost dust jacket could easily lose 75% of its value. A signed copy can also be important, if down the road the photographer is worthy. For living photographers, I've often taken books to exhibits or lectures, calling in advance to see if they have time and would be willing to sign.

"I used to come across some real bargains in old book stores here and overseas. But, merchants have become increasingly savvy about book values, and of course the smaller stores are now hard to find."

ADDENDUM by Jeff: "Given the discussion on book values in the comments, I'll add a bit to my post.

"While I don't plan to sell my collection, I need a realistic insurance value: for me if there's ever a loss or natural disaster; and for my potential heirs. I think this is wise for anyone having valuables and collectibles, especially if they are not commonly known items to others, including insurance companies and heirs. Toward this end, I used to have the book dealers I trusted to give me a written estimate based on their current sales. I would have them update this every five years or so.

"Last year, in preparation for a big move, I decided to send my list (with dealer notations on particulars, including condition) to an auction house in New York that specializes in photo book sales. This gave me another real world valuation, without any emotion attached.

"As I said earlier, though, the books are here for me to enjoy, not to sit idly on a shelf waiting for sale. But, if circumstances change, I'm better prepared."

Here's a modest suggestion for a self-assignment. If you have a "peeve pathology," as defined in the previous post...explore it. Embrace it. Work with it. Emphasize it and exaggerate it. See what you can do.

Hate noise? Find a really noisy camera and use it at its worst settings for a while. See what you can do with noise. Find the subjects that noise works with. Keep going until you take a flagrantly noisy picture you really honestly like.

Hate tilted horizons? Make yourself take a thousand pictures with tilted horizons. And not just a little off-kilter, but a lot. Really look at 'em, and see what works, what doesn't. Can you take a good picture with a tilted horizon?

Hate wide-angle distortion? Get a really wide lens that has tons of distortion and see what you can do with it. Play around. Sooner or later you'll take a picture that works.

Something always works.

You might not think that I could do that with "bad" bokeh, but my late friend Phil Davis actually had a picture he'd framed and hung on his wall that was mainly notable for spectacularly bad ni-sen (double-line) bokeh. It was taken with some sort of ancient achromat. There was a church steeple in the distant background, and the ni-sen was so bad that the lens had actually rendered two images of the steeple, like the lens was cross-eyed. Phil liked it. It was an unusual effect, to say the least.

I wonder if peeve pathologies can be "cured" in this manner?

What I'd really have to do in the spirit of this suggestion would be to process a whole bunch of pictures going heavy on the saturation and vibrance sliders, giving everything that excessive, unsubtle, found-on-the-web dinosaur-planet color palette that I just hate. With lots of sickly yellow-greens, and day-glo reds never found in nature. The thought gives me a twinge of physical revulsion. I should try it. (I won't, but I should.)

Although, on second thought, maybe that wouldn't be in the proper spirit of the exercise, because I could always undo it all later!

Anyway, just a thought.

Mike

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Question from Paul Logins: "Can 'good' or 'bad' bokeh be defined? Is there a majority consensus in the photography community or is it really in the eye of the beholder?"

Mike replies: Someday I'm going to do a visual post illustrating what I consider to be "good" bokeh, but for now that's going to have to wait.

However, as far as I'm concerned everything is in the eye of the beholder, not just bokeh, but certainly including bokeh. One of the nice things about photography as a pursuit/hobby is that we own our own practices as well as our own tastes...in the end, nobody can tell us what to do or what to like. People (like me) with strong opinions may make you more conscious of certain issues, technical and/or aesthetic, and people with long experience can help direct the development of your taste, either when you agree with them or—just as importantly—when you don't. And all of us are influenced by example, again either positively or (sometimes) negatively. But ultimately your concerns, your subject matter, what kind of "look" you aspire to, your aesthetic choices, your technical choices, how you react to your work or other peoples' work, all of it—are all ultimately up to you to decide.

And as far as this reply is concerned, you can take it or leave it. (Cue rimshot.)

Photo by Fabian Kruse

Featured Comment by Fabian Kruse: "I did that experiment with my Ricoh GRD2 some time ago. Hating its noise way too much, I decided to just walk with it at night, ISO maxed out, shooting long exposures, and thus getting the noisiest pictures possible. Two of them even made it to my photoblog, titled 'An Appreciation of Noise' (here [and above] and here). Nowadays, my noisophobia is nearly cured. While I don't always like it, I can live with it. And it doesn't look too bad in print after all…."

When it comes to photographic quality, maybe you have a peeve pathology. Or maybe you know someone else who does.

Peeve, n., a cause of annoyance; back-formation from peevish, adj.,  easily irritated, esp. by minor things.

Pathology, n., 3. mental, social, or linguistic abnormality or malfunction.

In a private email conversation among the TOP brain trust that I'm listening in on but not really participating in, one of my friends admitted to a heightened sensitivity to gloss differential in digital prints. "I always detested any darkroom print that had the slightest hint of it, color or black-and-white." quoth he. Of course, most digital prints have at least a little gloss differential, because the surface of the ink where it's laid down heavily is always going to be a little different from the surface of the paper where there's little or no ink. So our friend has tried to learn to tolerate it, but only because he has to. He's had to force himself to relax about it. It's not always easy for him. He's working on it.

Gloss differential? I seldom notice it. Except when it's so massive it slaps me across the chops like a dead carp.

Another TOP contributor hates so-called blue replacement (color-replacement, which, when it happens, is usually blue). Ever noticed that? It's when a narrow line like a electrical line or a slender branch is rendered in a digital picture as blue or purple or green instead of whatever color it should be. This friend hates that effect, notices it whenever it's present, and is probably frequently on heightened alert looking out for it.

Me? Don't really much care.

Blue replacement. Canon 5D Mark II, EF 35mm ƒ/1.4 lens, ~200%

I'm sure you know people who detest "noise." They are ever vigilant, rooting around in test pictures looking for the slightest trace of noise and, upon discovering it, trumpeting its presence like an avenging Zola. Me? Water off a duck's back. I kinda like a little noise. Those folks should get a clue and a life.

The darkroom equivalent of the noise police were called "grain-sniffers," so-called because of the close proximity of their noses to the prints when they were peering eagle-eyed at the image attempting to root out the slightest trace of the never-quite-banished evil.

I remember one hobbyist I was trying to help with this. He had gone to great lengths to devise a grain-free technique using specially selected materials and all sorts of darkroom tricks, like holding a piece of translucent plastic under the lens for part of the exposure time. Finally, he showed me a print representing the culmination of his efforts. It was so overpoweringly creamy and grain-free that it looked downright weird, like the subject of the picture was carved out of pudding. I remember thinking, well, this should satisfy him.

But no. "I can still see grain," he exclaimed, with no small measure of anguish, pointing to a small shadow area. A slight bit of film grain could indeed be detected—if you looked.

If you looked hard.

I'm way above such pettiness, in my own mind. I catch myself shaking my head and thinking, jeez, dude, get over it. Relax. Of course I can be troubled by particularly coarse, mushy grain, but I actually like grain, if it's nice. I'd go so far as to say I actually prefer a little grain to none in conventional B&W prints. I'm very relaxed about that.

But what I'm talking about here are pathologies—not intentional, sober, evenhanded, objective evaluations. Sometimes, ya just can't help what ya hate. Me, I see a perfectly nice picture I took, and my eye zooms right to whatever's most out of focus—how's the bokeh?!? Omigawd.

Adrianna right before her nap. Technically a perfectly nice family snap.
But as soon as I open it for the first time my eye goes right to...

...this, and I think, crap, is that bright ring? My new lens sucks!
See definition of "pathology," above.

I don't do this with other peoples' pictures, and I'm trying to relax about it with mine. But it's my peeve pathology, fer sure. I just hate nasty bokeh, and I have to struggle to let go of obsessing over it.

I'm mostly over it. I've worked hard to care less. But still, when I catch a trace of ni-sen I find myself thinking, what aperture was this? Gotta avoid this aperture with hard-line contrast twenty feet behind the focal plane...then I take a deep breath and think, easy, big guy. Nobody notices this sh*t but you. Let it go.

That's what defines a peeve pathology, I guess. It's whatever little peeve you have to work to let go of.

Because—well, you know how it is. There are a hundred things like this. Another friend hates any trace of haloing caused by oversharpening. If he can detect it, it's too much for him. Online, I've come across perfectly adequate rectangles of blue sky presented as evidence of lens vignetting. Vignetting? I sometimes add it to my pictures. You can probably name a few more yourself. They go on and on.

Gloss differential, blue replacement, noise, grain, haloing, vignetting, or any of the other tiny technical faults that people obsess over in photographs—those people are just being a little crazy, y'know?

Mike

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Featured Comment by Dogman: "I really hate perfection."

Featured Comment by Bob Cornelis: "Great discussion! I've been a professional fine art printer (and photographer) for many years now so I've observed first hand how every client focuses on something different in their images. Many of the things they obsess about would never, never be noticed by anyone else. Often these obsessions cause them to lose sight of what the image is all about. Have you ever thought about how many great shots have never seen the light of day because the photographer had some idiosyncratic hangup that caused them to abandon them? Over the years, I've somehow learned to let go of most of these 'tics' in my own work. About the only thing that drives me crazy when I look at a photograph is if it doesn't tell me anything about the photographer."

Featured Comment by sean: "I'm thinking hard here and I'm struggling to come up with something. Over-cooked HDR and 300mm lenses for street photography bug the life out of me, but those are a matter of taste and easily avoided. Noise, vignetting, iffy bokeh and the like, seem to go under my radar. I tell myself that's due to a high level of tolerance rather than low standards. It's the same philosophy I used to use for dating."

By John Kennerdell

It’s easy to know when a job is done: it’s when you get paid. What’s harder is to decide when it’s time to wind down a long-term personal project.

In 1998, a Japanese aid agency asked me to take some photos of schools and hospitals in rural Cambodia. I’d spent time in Phnom Penh but hadn’t ventured much into the countryside, partly out of safety concerns, partly due to the wretched roads. Helping push your bus through knee-high mud lost its appeal a long time ago.

But we did this trip by riverboat, and it was a revelation. Half the country seemed to be water, served by a vast fleet of elderly boats and impossibly colorful boatmen, porters, and passengers. It felt like a ticket back to the 1950s. I did the job but then stayed on another week just to shoot this waterworld.

My experience has been that we don’t choose our best subjects. They come to us, insistent and demanding. Here was something visually exciting, culturally significant, and likely to fade into history once the road system improved. There was no question but that I had to try to document a bit of it. What to do with the photos, well, I'd work on that later.

So for ten years I kept going back, usually at my own expense. Again and again. Until, sure enough, the boats began to shrink in size and number. The weird and wonderful cargo—pingpong tables and disco balls, looms and livestock, Chinese generators and teakwood beds—grew rare, then pretty much disappeared. Old fellows in fedoras gave way to young ones in baseball caps.

The feeling had been building, but it didn’t hit with full force until one day a couple of months ago. I was on a favorite dock—still a lively little place—but things just weren’t happening. It was as if I were trying to recapture my own best shots and not quite pulling it off. Another photographer fresh to the scene no doubt would have thrived on it. For me, it simply felt like time to move on. Yes, I’ll happily go on shooting the Cambodian boat scene whenever I come across it. I’m just not going to organize large chunks of my life around it any more. Time is finite, and too much else awaits.

As if to prove the point, on the way back to my hotel, crossing the big new bridge over the Mekong, I happened to see an impromptu volleyball game on the shore directly below. Not a subject I’d ever given a thought to, but it was a nice angle and within a few frames I found myself thinking, hmmm, Asian street sports...this could have potential. The start of another project? Well no, probably nothing that ambitious. But who knows? It’s just good to feel a little of the old excitement in a new context. The best subjects and the best shots, one always likes to think, are yet to come.

John

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Featured Comment by Semilog: "The volleyball player may be my favorite photo ever to appear on TOP. Gorgeous, like the very very best dance photography."