Archiv 2006 of Public Life Blog

Gomma is a non-profit print magazine devoted to photography. The current issue (#2) appears to be already sold out but the first issue can be bought online for 2 euros (+ shipping) - a bargain.

Public-life.org was featured in the news section of Gomma Portal on their website:

"..if you are a street photographer you gotta check Public Life..."

Check out the Gomma website!

Reknowned photographer Louis Stettner depicts the ever evolving city of New York in a fascinating collection of pictures ranging from the 1950s through the 1990s to the present. 100 duotone photographs.

Buy at Amazon: Louis Stettner's New York

Matt Weber first started taking photographs while working as a NYC taxi driver. He soon discovered that the idea of seeing something and recording it was really what he'd been doing all along, mentally framing shots as he drove around town on twelve hour shifts. Gradually his confidence began to build, and he began to see himself as a photographer with a taxi, rather than a cabbie with a camera.

Although Weber's book can be viewed as a revival of classic street photography, as Lifson points out in his introduction, "he works at being nobody but himself." Images go from despairing to hopeful, alarming to mundane, but are never contrived, moments which appeared on their own, rather than being orchestrated to achieve their effect. "His strongest pictures have no minor subjects or incidental matter and thus achieve a seamless coherence of subject and context."

not exactly a steal at $60, but Matt did put lots of sweat and effort in it to get the book published in great quality...

Buy at abebooks.com: Urban Prisoner

Anything can happen on the streets of New York City. For instance, a former art director for Saks Fifth Avenue could decide to become a taxi driver, and then start photographing all the other crazy things and moments of city life going on around him. David Bradford is one of the few American-born, English-speaking cabbies left in Manhattan, and the only one he knows of that shoots photos while he drives. Using high-speed black and white film and an automatic camera, Bradford has been shooting the New York streets since 1990. The more than 600 photos here reveal an edgy, unguarded New York, catching street vendors, other drivers, billboards, the soaring architecture of skyscrapers and bridges, nighttime revelers, graffiti, and abstract patterns of lights and rhythmic structures, along with such whimsical images as a line of young women by a truck, each toting a bare-bottomed male mannequin. Several essays describe Bradford and his methods, in English, German, and French.

Buy at Amazon: Drive by Shootings

from amazon.com:
This landmark book, a monumental chronicle of the photographic genre created from the chaotic energy of everyday street life, grew out of a fifteen-year collaboration between an esteemed curator and a distinguished photographer. The work of such celebrated masters as Atget, Stieglitz, Cartier-Bresson, Brassaï, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Garry Winogrand are presented here, along with extraordinary photographs by complete unknowns. Colin Westerbeck's enlightening text illuminates each of these images, and a new illustrated afterword by Westerbeck, only available in this paperback edition, examines contemporary street photography.

Buy at Amazon: Bystander : A History of Street Photography

For everyone interested in documentary photography, this is a fascinating book. Not only does it conatin images by 61 members of the legendary Magnum photo agency, these photographers also discuss their work, careers and beliefs.

Buy at Amazon: Magnum Stories

In the winter of 1998/99 photographer Luc Delahaye traveled through Russia. This book contains the pictures he took on his journey: dark, depressing. Beautiful at the same time. A small (13 x 18 cm) yet remarkable book.

Buy at Amazon: Winterreise

Another of those Taschen bargains... :-) For €19.99, you get a beautiful, large "coffee-table" book, full of fascinating B&W pictures, very nice print quality. And not only are the photos a pleasure to look at, the text is also fun and worth reading.

Buy at Amazon: Jeanloup Sieff. 40 Years of Photography

Willy Ronis is a key figure in the history of French photography. He is regarded as one of the most important representatives of the humanist school of photography. This new book offers an overwiev of his work, a bit of everything: street photos, reportage, portraits and nudes. 192 pages of wonderful B&W photos. Print quality is excellent, especially considering the cheap price - for €19.99, this book is a bargain.

Buy at Amazon: Willy Ronis