Photography Theory jakarta: 10 Best Photography Books

1. The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer told that when someone who hold the camera will see the world differently. Dyer creates a photography theory that actually photographers continually come across one and another as long as their journey to get the identification of their style.

2. Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes is not a photographer, this is the same as Geoff Dyer. The book is about philosophical sign of the photography medium. He disagree that many ideas about technical skill is not relevant with the process of photography.

3. On Photography by Susan Sontag

In this book, Susan Sontag told about her opinion on the history and recent photography in the societies around 1970s. She gives many examples of the recent photography.

4. Ways of Seeing by John Berger

John Berger’s book is one of the most significant books on art. The book is influenced by the television series in BBC about the Sunday Times critical opinion about photography theory. The script is also adapted into another book with the same name.

5. The Camera by Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams was the amazing artist in the 20^th century. He has career for over sixty years and he takes more than 40,000 photographs. His technical series has become the references for many books and magazines about photography.

6. The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present by Beaumont Newhall

Newhall is the leading art historian, writer, curator and also photographer. This book is about the evolution of art especially on the aesthetic aspects. He managed the history of photography together with scholarship, clarity and enthusiasm.

7. Looking at The Photographs by John Szarkowski

This book is initially published in 1973. It is about the evolution of the medium in photography which uses certain examples in illustrating the development. John Szarkowski explores the formal, aesthetic, historical and social issues on the 100 photographs from the recent collections.

8. The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski

This book introduces the visual language found in the photography theory. With the dense text, Szarkowski skillfully group the 172 photographs based on the history and the medium.

9. Photographers on Photography by Nathan Lyons (editor)

This book is quite small but it is very interesting. This book may be the only one which discusses the view of photography from Ansel Adams until Edward Weston.

10. Circles of Confusion by Hollis Frampton

This book is a bit too hard to finds. It has only few copies and also pricey. Hollis Frampton writes about the camera arts in the 1960s and 1970s.