Photo books: The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore
This is one of the few books which I’ve read more times than I can remember, and so it was really interesting to take the entire 45min chiyoda line ride home and go cover to cover with this new edition. The new version comes in at 133 pages, 47 pages more than the original. The new reproduction of the images is amazingly beautiful, and the color pictures in particular just leap off the page.
Phaidon did a fantastic job with this new version, and including the photographer’s name and the title of the picture was a nice touch. I’m not sold on their Courier-esque font use (it’s got the Hip Now Feel) but the overall layout is quite sharp. The text of the original was leaner, and maybe a little more poetic. The new one is a little more accessible in how it comes across much more like a real textbook by the way Shore presents some issues (the Japanese woodblock print page comes to mind.) and in how the sections are organized.
I bought the first edition back in 2002(?) at the university as it was a textbook for my photography class, and it’s great to think that this new edition is in a lot of student’s hands now.
I would suggest to you this: Buy this book NOW.
