7 monographs EVERY photographer MUST own

**Photography as Art: A Celebration of Creativity**

As we navigate the world of photography, it's easy to get caught up in the technical aspects of the craft. We spend hours poring over camera settings, lighting conditions, and post-production techniques. However, what sets great photographers apart is their unique approach to their art form. In this article, we'll explore three exceptional photographers who showcase a distinct style and approach to their work.

First, let's take a look at the incredible work of Irving Penn. With his iconic photographs, Penn has redefined the boundaries of fashion photography. His approach is characterized by simplicity, elegance, and an unwavering attention to detail. Penn's use of light, composition, and subject matter all contribute to his distinctive style, which has been celebrated for decades.

A recent publication, "Irving Penn Centennial," provides a comprehensive look at the photographer's work over the past century. This book is a testament to Penn's enduring legacy and showcases some of the most iconic images from his career. What makes this book truly special is its attention to detail and the thoughtful curation of photographs that have been selected for inclusion.

In addition to Penn, we also want to highlight two emerging photographers who are making waves in the photography world. The first is Tom Barr, a talented photographer known by his pseudonym "Ootlier." His latest book, "Shetland OO," is a stunning documentary series that explores the Shetland Island wool industry. What sets this book apart from other photography projects is its focus on storytelling and documentation rather than simply showcasing technical skills.

Barr's use of light, composition, and subject matter all contribute to his unique perspective on the world around him. This book is a testament to his dedication as a photographer and his ability to tell compelling stories through his lens. We're grateful to have become friends with Tom since he sent us "Shetland OO," and we highly recommend this book to anyone interested in photography or storytelling.

Another emerging photographer who has caught our attention is Bastiaan Woudt. His latest project, "In Marokko," is a dreamlike series of photographs that capture the essence of Morocco. What sets Woudt's work apart from other photographers is his use of focus points and composition to create a sense of depth and atmosphere.

Woudt's approach to photography is characterized by an ethereal quality, as if he's capturing moments from another world. This book is a must-have for anyone interested in fine art photography or simply looking to be inspired by beautiful images. We're grateful to have received "In Marokko" as a gift from Gabriel Wertman, who sent it to us with kind regards.

Finally, we want to recognize two photographers whose work has been featured in our show this year. Tom Barr and Bastiaan Woudt are both talented individuals who have made significant contributions to the world of photography. Their dedication to their craft is inspiring, and we're grateful for the opportunity to share their work with our audience.

**A Special Shout-out**

We'd like to extend a special thank you to Gabriel Wertman for sending us "Irving Penn Centennial" as a gift. This book is truly exceptional, and we're so glad to have had the chance to review it.

To Tom Barr, we want to say thanks for sharing your incredible work with us. Your photography has inspired us, and we're grateful for the opportunity to showcase it on our show.

And finally, to Bastiaan Woudt, thank you for sending us "In Marokko." This book is a true masterpiece, and we're honored to have had the chance to review it.

**The Future of Photography**

As we look ahead to 2018, we're excited to share some exciting news with our audience. We'll be reviewing the Light L16 camera in our next video, and we can't wait to share our thoughts on this innovative new tool. Stay tuned for more updates from around the world of photography.

In closing, we hope this article has provided inspiration for all of you who are passionate about photography. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, there's always something new to learn and discover in the world of art. We'll see you next time on our show.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enokay so over the last bunch of videosthat I've done you guys have seen mewearing this jacket that Brian Abramsover at Amabilis is making they've gota Kickstarter going right now also hasthis awesome hoodie use the Force Lukewell here's the deal this is the lastweek of the Kickstarter campaign so ifyou want one of these you want it to saydeeper pixels or whatever it is you'reinto now's the time to do it and theyeven have kind of an end of the campaignsale going on so I will put a link inthe show description go check it outso Happy New Year it is awesome see youguys back and I've got a couple thingsthat I want to cover today so let's getstarted I've got a few really coolphotography books that I want to sharewith you guys today and so basicallywhat happened was last year at the endof the year I did a video and it was mytop ten book recommendations this wasthe end of 2016 and I just because I'ddone a lot of book reviews in videosover the year I decided to kind ofsummarize them and kind of get my toppicks and most of you guys know I have alot of books I buy a lot of books I lovephotography I love printed material andit's just something that's veryinspiring to me and so this year rolledaround and people started asking me onsocial if I was gonna do another end ofthe year book roundup again and I didn'trealize it was a thing but I'm happy todo it I did by not as many books thisyear as I did last you because I'mrapidly running out of space and becausethe mail you guys send meI really am tight on space and so justdepends on what comes out and howinterested I am in it but I did buy afew that I want to share with you we'regonna go through these in just a secondbut one thing I want to mention beforewe get started here is something that tome is kind of exciting news I startedThe Art of Photography in 2008 that waswhen I made the first video this year is2018 I have now been making this showfor 10 years which is unbelievable I startedout on iTunes I guess about 2010 or so Iput everything on YouTube and I startedproducing on both platforms and now Ihave a Facebook Watch channel it's beenan amazing experience and I try tocommunicate this to you guys prettyfrequently but this show has changed mylife in a very profound way it's anunusual thing to do for a living I love itI loveopportunities where I get to meet youguys I love the community that we'vekind of built around this thing and I'vehad some opportunities to do someamazing things that I didn't ever thinkthat I would be able to do things likethe Artist Series even like just lastmonth were kind of at the last minute Iended up just saying I'm going toArizona I'm gonna do this video thatI've been wanting to do for over a yearnow and I ended up doing like threevideos out of that and there was a GrandCanyon video and then I did some stuffin New York and there's some footagethat I haven't shown you guys yet fromthe New York trip and so there's a lotof opportunity to do some interestingstuff with the show and because it's thetenth year I want it to be as epic as Ipossibly can make it and I just don'twant it to be another year I want it tobe something that's really cool and sothat's kind of where I am with this andI don't have anything to announce justyet although I am working on some stuffthat will announce it when the time isright but this does impact the show inthe following way because I will have tomove a few things around to make someother things possible and the big onethat gets affected is going to be photoassignments now we have been doing photoassignments on kind of this weirdschedule where every Monday we're gonnado something with photo assignments soI'll either give you an assignment orI'm… two weeks or so or a week I'd have aturnaround time and then I share thework that was submitted with you guysand the biggest complaint that I get byfar from people is its just too shortand it's too fast to turn around andit's also I think been confusing alittle bit in terms of what is thecurrent photo assignment when is thenext one coming out and so I want tomake a big change there and I think it'sgonna be a change for the betterI'm gonna slow this down we're gonna doone a month I think that's a much betterway of doing itI think rather than having a whole bunchof photo assignments at the end of theyear I would rather focus on the qualitymore than the quantity of it so what I'mgonna do is just do it once a month thatway it's easy to remember what's thephoto assignment for February what's thephoto assignment for January and it'sjust by the month you know when it'sgonna be due it's gonna be due at theend of the month I'll need a day or twoto put the video together but you knowwhen that's coming up you can share yourwork on social and I'll see it there sothat's the big change that I'm gonnamake I just think it's gonna work a lotbetter I would like to get your opinionso please leave me a comment on this twothings one does the schedule work foryou guys do you think this is a faircompromise with all this is just goingto be a little less frequent work for meto do likethe giving the assignment is not hard butputting together those videos where I've got to put everybody's names in it and I've made acouple errors in the past it's it's alot of work and I think this will justopen it up and it allows us all to focuson the quantity and not the quality plusit'll give me during the month someother chances to merge other content inwith that too depending on what thesubject is so I want to know what youthink of that idea and 2) do you want aphoto assignment for January I can doone but we're already a couple days init's up to you guys so would you ratherwait and we'll kick it off in Februaryand we'll just do something totally coolso anyway I would like to hear from youguys on that so let's look at a few bookrecommendations I will put a list ofeverything in the show notes below so ifyou're interested in getting one ofthese they're all in a list together andyou can find them on Amazon but anywaywhat I'm gonna do here is I'm gonnastart with the color stuff and colorphotography is a little bit of a stretchfor me because historically my interestsand my tastes have always been withblack-and-white photographers but morerecently I think this probably startedwith a Saul Leiter to a large extentErnst Hass who is an incrediblephotographer had a collection that…actually there were two books that werereleased this yearthis one's called color correction andthe other book is okay it's more of hisset photography that he did for movie studiosbut color correction is insanely goodhighly recommended and there's anothercolor photographer that I start checkingout more in-depth as well and I've beenaware of Luigi Ghirri for a long time butLuigi Ghirri a well-known Italianphotographer has a book calledKodachrome this is not a new book thisis an older book I don't know that it'sin print and so you could have sometrouble tracking this down but it'sworth being patient to check out thisbook I actually bought several years agoand I've talked about it a zillion timeson this show but this little trilogy Iwant to make complete with Sail Leiter'searly color it's still in print if youdon't have it it's well worth it andwhat's interesting to me and the reasonI'm including him in this conversationis that all three of these photographersthey all shot on Kodachrome and this waspre digital and so there really wasn't alot of post-processing that was involvedand the interesting thing to me is allthree of these people have radicallydifferent styles Ernst Haas' work hasthis lush feel to it - these deep richcolors then kind of the opposite wouldbe Luigi Ghirri who works in kind of thesepastels with very minimal compositionsand their work looks completelydifferent even though they were usingthe same film and then Saul Leiter whoalsoKodachrome comes into the picture andhe's got a very different approach towhat he does in a very stylized look andI think there's an important reminderhere that we get really involved in thecamera side of things and then also inthe post-production side of thingsparticularly when working with color andI think it's a really wonderful reminderall three of these photographers to methat there's so much that you can dothey all look different because of theirapproaches are different the subjectmatter is very different the lightingconditions are different and they'rekind of tailored to each individualphotographer and that's where yourtalent and your sense of style are gonnaend up coming from not so much on thepost into things so that's why I wantedto include these three in the colortrilogy here next up is this very thickand very awesome book from probably myfavorite photographer in the history ofphotography and this is Irving Penn Ihave covered Irving Penn a lot on theshow beforeand there was a book that came out acouple years ago and the exhibition thatI was covering I think was called BeyondBeauty this is even better this is verymuch more complete in terms of what wasincluded here this was I don't know thatthis was done around a specific show theMet was involved with this but they arevery involved with the Penn Foundationhighly recommended is the Irving PennCentennial this book was actually sentto me as a gift from Gabriel Wertman andGabriel lives in Mexico City I met himwhen I was down there last year and hesent this to me I it was actually in thelast video I did an unboxing this isFlor Garduño and she is a wonderfulphotographer very much in the vein ofGraciela Iturbide her work has amystical quality with a lot of symbolismincluded in it and I had to include thisas one of my favorites of this year it'snot one that was on my list to buy itwas given to me as a gift and I haveabsolutely fallen in love with it thereis some amazing work here so once againGabriel thank you for sharing this thelast two books that I want to share withyou guys these are not yet big-namephotographers I think they're extremelytalented they're not done by bigpublishing houses but you guys send me alot of work during the year I've done alot of mail time shows this year and Iwant to recognize two people both thesebooks are available and I will link themup in the show description but I wantedto give them a shout out because I thinkthis work to me is extra-special andI've really enjoyed it a lot and thefirst one up is Shetland OO which isdone by Tom Barr and some of you guysmight remember Tom or recognize him hegoes by the name Ootlier in the commentssection he's a hell of a guy andcredible photographer this is notexclusively a photography book KateDavies wrote the text in here and is adocumentary book on the shetland islandwool industry and I think thephotography in here is absolutelyoutstanding and what I like about thisbook is that it is not photography forthe sake of showing off photography heis telling a story he is documenting inhere but it is extremely good and Tomshoots at such a high level and I amreally glad that we become friends sincehe sent this to me and so Tom I didn'ttell you guys that I was gonna be doingthis so special shout out to Tom youguys need to check out Shetland Oo it isfantastic the second book that I want torecognize was sent to me by Bastiaan Woudtthis is called In Marokko Bastiaan hasa very ethereal quality to the work thathe does and this is my other favoritebook that was sent in this year I reallyenjoyed this as a very dreamlike qualityto it a lot of interesting things aredone with focus points and where youreye is supposed to go in the compositionand the work is just beautiful andabsolutely outstanding so I want to givea shout out to Bastian once again tooand again both these books are availableI will link them up in the showdescriptionI hope this has provided someinspiration for you guys and this waskind of my picks for I guess 2017 butwe're in to 2018 now that's over withalthough I have cool books to drawinspiration from now anyway a lot ofcool stuff coming up this week includingthis disaster you don't want to miss myreview on the light l16 I will have thatout this week I've got a bunch of otherstuff coming up as well love to hearfrom you please leave a comment anduntil the next videoHappy New Year and I will see you guysnext time later\n"