From The Shelf - Michael Ormerod - States of America A lovely book that deserves a lot more attention. It chronicles, Ormerod’s travels across the US in the late 1980s. Shades of Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand and Lee Friedlander are all here - with a British slant on it. Sadly Ormerod was killed in a roadside accident in 1991 while photographing in Arizona. Get this book if you can. It’s topnotch. 4th April 2013

From The Shelf - Michael Ormerod - States of America

A lovely book that deserves a lot more attention. It chronicles, Ormerod’s travels across the US in the late 1980s. Shades of Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand and Lee Friedlander are all here - with a British slant on it. Sadly Ormerod was killed in a roadside accident in 1991 while photographing in Arizona. Get this book if you can. It’s topnotch.

4th April 2013

Recent Buy - Mitch Epstein - Work A collection of different stuff from Epstein’s career. The cover shot is taken from the series Family Business, based on Epstein’s father’s real estate company which crumbled and eventually failed in the early 1990s.  16th March 2013

Recent Buy - Mitch Epstein - Work

A collection of different stuff from Epstein’s career. The cover shot is taken from the series Family Business, based on Epstein’s father’s real estate company which crumbled and eventually failed in the early 1990s. 

16th March 2013

From The Shelf - Leroy Grannis - Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s A Christmas present from my mother-in-law from a few years gone back. I’ve never been surfing but I definitely love a surf photo book. Grannis was the super-daddy surf photographer of his era and this is a lovely selection of his work. I would really recommend this for flicking through on a cold winter evening, when all you fancy doing is hopping on a flight to California. Hang-ten dudes!  12th February 2013

From The Shelf - Leroy Grannis - Surf Photography of the 1960s and 1970s

A Christmas present from my mother-in-law from a few years gone back. I’ve never been surfing but I definitely love a surf photo book. Grannis was the super-daddy surf photographer of his era and this is a lovely selection of his work. I would really recommend this for flicking through on a cold winter evening, when all you fancy doing is hopping on a flight to California. Hang-ten dudes! 

12th February 2013

Recent Buy - John Phillips - Bled to the Gutter It’s a little bashed but I bought this book on the strength of the title. I picked it up at one of my favourite second hand shops - The Keel Row Bookshop in North Shields. It’s worth a visit if you are in the area.   Phillips’ biography tells stories of being a “reporter-photographer” from the mid 1940s through to the 70s mostly for Life Magazine. There are some amazing tales of wartime liberation and meeting world leaders like Tito and Kruschev. I think this book must actually have been owned by Phillips as it has the sticker inside addressed “Sender : John Phillips, 23 Via San Maurilio, Milano”…classy address John.  12th January 2013

Recent Buy - John Phillips - Bled to the Gutter

It’s a little bashed but I bought this book on the strength of the title. I picked it up at one of my favourite second hand shops - The Keel Row Bookshop in North Shields. It’s worth a visit if you are in the area.  

Phillips’ biography tells stories of being a “reporter-photographer” from the mid 1940s through to the 70s mostly for Life Magazine. There are some amazing tales of wartime liberation and meeting world leaders like Tito and Kruschev. I think this book must actually have been owned by Phillips as it has the sticker inside addressed “Sender : John Phillips, 23 Via San Maurilio, Milano”…classy address John. 

12th January 2013

From The Shelf - Tom Wood - Bus Odyssey I picked this up a few years ago at the great Camden Lock Books which actually isn’t in Camden but is under the roundabout in Old Street, London. It’s a reprint of the classic Tom Wood book All Zones Off Peak. This version is published by Hantje Cantz. I’m not sure about the glossy cover but the work inside is great. Get it if you can. 15th Dec 2012

From The Shelf - Tom Wood - Bus Odyssey

I picked this up a few years ago at the great Camden Lock Books which actually isn’t in Camden but is under the roundabout in Old Street, London. It’s a reprint of the classic Tom Wood book All Zones Off Peak. This version is published by Hantje Cantz. I’m not sure about the glossy cover but the work inside is great. Get it if you can.

15th Dec 2012

Recent Buy - Young Meteors - Martin Harrison

I picked this up, hidden at the back of a pile of books at Olivers Book Shop in Whitley Bay, Newcastle for £5. It’s a collection of the ground breaking 60s British photographers who pioneered the new world of Sunday magazine supplements. There is much from the well known suspects here..David Bailey, Don McCullin, Terence Donovan. However it’s the lesser known who fill out the story.. Graham Finlayson, John Bulmer, Roger Mayne and Nigel Henderson. Softback only but a nice book nonetheless. 

1st October 2012

Recent Buy - Illuminance - Rinko Kawauchi

Another success from the Japanese photographer Kawauchi. The usual mix of the ephemeral and the obscure. Dead deer, walks in the park, raw meat, butterflies, boxing..whatever!  A delicately printed book but maybe not as good as The Eyes, The Ears, another of her collections I like. 

20th September 2012

Recent Buy - The Last Years of Walker Evans - Jerry L Thompson

Thompson was Walkers assistant in the last years of his life and this absorbing biography brings much more than the usual hagiography of a great life. I get the feeling that Thompson, a talented photographer in his own right, took on more than he bargained for when he began this role helping Evans. The account includes work on his great Polaroid portraits but also details his sad and somewhat lonely demise right up till his death in 1975. I picked up this book up at the great second book shop, Photobooks International. Definitely worth a visit, if you’re in the Kings’ Cross, London area. 

5th July 2012

Recent Buy - Woody Guthrie, A Life - Joe Klein Great biography of America’s hillybilly singer laureate. Klein, a Rolling Stone writer at the time, penned this in 1980 before achieving great success with his anonymous book Primary Colors in the Clinton era. Guthrie’s life has been much covered but this super biography gained great exposure when Bruce Springsteen mentioned it several times during the Born in the USA tour. As Woody said, “This is Land is Your Land”…it sure is! 4th May 2012

Recent Buy - Woody Guthrie, A Life - Joe Klein

Great biography of America’s hillybilly singer laureate. Klein, a Rolling Stone writer at the time, penned this in 1980 before achieving great success with his anonymous book Primary Colors in the Clinton era. Guthrie’s life has been much covered but this super biography gained great exposure when Bruce Springsteen mentioned it several times during the Born in the USA tour. As Woody said, “This is Land is Your Land”…it sure is!

4th May 2012

Recent Buy - Easy Riders - Peter Biskind Biskind dishes the dirt on the 70s Hollywood elite, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicolson, Dennis Hopper et al. Great book and great cover from one of the UK’s best cover designers, Will Webb. Managed to pick up this rarish 1st edition hard cover through Abe.com. Worth a read if you’re into the ‘flicks’ 10th March 2012

Recent Buy - Easy Riders - Peter Biskind

Biskind dishes the dirt on the 70s Hollywood elite, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicolson, Dennis Hopper et al. Great book and great cover from one of the UK’s best cover designers, Will Webb. Managed to pick up this rarish 1st edition hard cover through Abe.com. Worth a read if you’re into the ‘flicks’

10th March 2012