Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi folks, This isn't off topic because it's about used photography books. You know from yesteryear when the world was all film and Buck Rogers was a space cowboy. I'm a consummate used book store miner, always digging in them searching for photography book nuggets, like from the 1900's, the earlier the better. Each find reveals so much of where we came from as photographers, how our camera gear, particularly Leica's, were used and what those photographers saw and captured compared to what we see and capture today. Two wonderful finds yesterday, "U.S. CAMERA ANNUAL 1939." and "THE GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHIC ANNUAL1956" "U.S. CAMERA ANNUAL 1939." A $20.00 purchase of a million dollar look at the photography of 1939 as selected by Edward Steichen. A small portfolio of his work at the beginning is beautifully re-produced with a self portrait dated 1898 followed by b&w portraits of his famous folks and other subjects. Today if it still existed it would be a magazine on the rack in a shop. 1939 it's a wire spiral bound hard cover book with beautifully reproduced photographs fit to frame. Amazing quality production, aaaaaaaahhhh the days of real books! :-) All in all I can only say, if you're a book miner like me, keep a sharp eye for this as it'll be a treasure in your personal library. "THE GERMAN PHOTOGRAPHIC ANNUAL1956" Another $20.00 nugget and the first edition printed in English. A single photograph to a page illustrating 120 pages of very interesting pictures of which 33 were shot with Leica's! The book is assembled in two parts, the descriptive section containing a tiny bio of each photographer and why, what he used and how he shot the picture, actually very interesting copy. The second half a clean photo book of un-interrupted pictures, predominately b&w with 8 colour plates. Obviously you can see where colour ranked! ;-) ( I thought it fit appropriately with my well used, "Real Photographers shoot B&W, eat sushi and drink scotch!") ;-) just weekend chatter. ted