[6-19] "Bookstore"

Books on photography divide into a few obvious camps:

(1) Super technical "guides" | these deal with how to use a camera, the settings, lighting methods, lenses, and all that jazz. The covers are usually bendy, and the author's portrait features a camera, on a tundra.

(2) academic | these focus on periods of photography, genre, or a cultural icon, and generally describe the life of the artist, more/less a biography, delving into the realm of creative work; focusing on meaning, aesthetic developments, and sociopolitical ramifications

(3) gallery | these hardcover titles do not focus on text, but the images photographers feel describe their work best

On Wednesday, I stopped by the photography section at Green Apple in San Francisco. It was impressive, affordable too. I remember the Berkeley library had a great section, too, but I stopped when covid hit.

One does not really see much of printed images. We stare at digital screens; images on paper are like relics, and sometimes they are larger than screens. They do not emit light. And books feel strangely modest; people work for Instagram attention. I do not see comments/likes, and there is no metadata to extract.

I also saw Philip Gefter's new bio on Avedon (2020). The title seems pompous, but I plan to read it; the writing in the last chapter felt good.

I walked away with David Levi Strauss's "Photography and Belief" (2020) though its small size and philosophical title made it an attractive purchase.