Reader’s Diary

Robert Adams

This is a collection of nine essays on photography.  I particularily enjoyed  “Truth and Landscape”, “Civilizing Criticism”,  “Minor White”,  and “Beauty in Photography”.   The writing is  clear, the points made are interesting, and my only criticism is that the book is too short.

Mark Klett

Mark Klett was the chief photographer for the Rephotographic Survey Project in 1970s.  The project attempted to discover the vantage  points used by famous 19th century landscape photogrpahers of the American West and “rephotograph” the views as exactly as possible.   The results vividly illustrated of the passage of a century.  Sometimes they found surprsingly few changes, while in other cases – especially where resovoirs have been created – the differences are dramatic.

In the 1990s Klett  created Third View to take another look at the same landscapes.  “Third Views, Second Sights”  presents the original views and views from both rephotographic projects.  There are fewer changes between the 70s and 90s than I would have expected, but near rapidly urbanizing areas like Reno and Salt Lake the changes are striking.

In addition to the large, well-reproduced, information-rich large-format shots the book contains informative text about the project and the original photographers (William Henry Jackson, T. H. O’Sullivan, and William Bell, etc.).  In addition, there’s mention of local people, historic and modern artifacts found by the rephotographers, a travelogue, and great non-rephotographic shots by project photographers Mark Klett, Kyle Bajakian, Byron G. Wolfe and others.

At first I thought the photos were a bit dull because they lack the deep blacks of an Ansel Adams landscape.  But the rephotographs are more Robert Adams than Ansel Adams.   The 19th century views have a look all their own that results from the equipment and processes of the day, notably the washed-out skies characteristic of wet plate photos.  The newer photos have the smoothness of tone and extreme detail of modern large-format emulsions.

The registration of the old and the new in each set of photos is remarkable.  The techniques the team used to achieve this precision are explained on the project web site, which also contains many examples of the project’s work.

Ryan D’Agostino

D’Agostino walked the streets of the richest zip codes in America, knocking on the doors of the mansions and asking the rich people about, well, being rich.  It’s an interesting idea, and there are some interesting stories in the book, but I’m suspicious of the result: naturally people are going to portray themselves as the heroes of their own stories.   Anyone really interested in the species American millionaire would be better served by  “The Millionaire Next Door“.

Richard Benson

“The Printed Picture” is a survey by a master printer of how man has reproduced images.  Benson writes about everything  from cave drawings to inkjets.  It’s a fascinating, personal, and sometimes engagingly crotchety (for example, he refers to the term “giclee” as “deeply stupid”) book.  The illustrations – from Benson’s own collection -  are seldom famous but are usually interesting.  They range from woodblocks to etchings to money to a vast variety of photographic techniques and on to digital.  This is a must-read for anyone interested in photography or printing