 How's it how's it? Books in photography. Oh, there are many many books. A lot of them are simply tutorials, lighting guides, you know the sort of thing, but there are books that I feel every photographer should absolutely read. Anybody who's watched the channel for any amount of time will realize that this guy here, Joel Maievitz, and this is not one of his photography books is a huge favorite of him. I think he is one of the most eloquent, one of the most supportive photographers of this modern era. He talks about photography in a way that I wish I had just a tenth of of his enthusiasm for and is extremely generous with his knowledge. And this particular volume here, which is called seeing things, isn't a book that I would initially have considered because it says a kid's guide to looking at photographs. I'm not a kid. Why would I look at photographs? You look like a kid does. But I bought this as a present for a friend of mine's daughter. And I flicked through it and I went wow. This is a really good, but this is like you should, I think this should be required reading. What Joel has done in this book is that he has taken various concepts. I'll just give you an idea here. The past and the present, actions and angles, the power of observation, the right moment, the blue hour, the human condition. Concepts which I think everybody can use within their own photography would benefit from using in their own photography and explains them in a simple way to understand. Then it goes, it's not talking about, you know, the decisive moment, for example, how much has been written about the decisive moment? And yet Joel's explaining it as if he would to a child. The concept here of light and happiness. Now once you go here, I'm going to hold this like that, right? And there's a photograph here called by Sally Gal, called Flying 2014. And this is, I'll put it up there. I'll put a better picture up on the screen. And the text I'll give you an example. It goes, if a friend asked you, did you do something interesting today? And you answered, I looked at some laundry. She would probably think you were nuts. Laundry? What about it? A lot of things that might inspire you don't sound so interesting, but you can see something that changes you, astonishes you in a split second. It goes on to say, people ask me all the time, how do I know what to take a picture of? That age-old question? And I answer, whatever it is that makes you stop photograph that. This book is full of these ideas of prompts that are easy to read one-in-one out that are going to absolutely change the way that you think about your photography. It certainly did for me and all of this in a child's book. And you can see, I was so impressed with it, I actually bought my own copy. So that's one book. A little known fact, here's a bit of trivia for you photographic eye fans, is that when I was trying to think of the name for the channel, I was looking through all the books and stuff like that. And I just kind of got all, because Alex Kilby talks about photography, sounds a bit rubbish. And I found this book in my collection, The Photographer's Eye. I thought, that makes a fantastic name for a channel, we'll have that. And then as the more, I think, astute amongst you may have noticed, it's not called The Photographer's Eye, it's called the photographic eye, because when I went to go name the channel, I misnamed it. So there's the origin story. This is a book that I purchased, of course, a while ago now, but it's by the Museum of Modern Art, written by John Zvarkhelsky. This particular book breaks things down into ideas, like the frame. Here is a whole section about how to use framing within your photography. But again, not in a tutorial sort of way of like, this is how you frame things, this is how you do it. This is showing you images of various photographers and the way that they are using the frame of the camera. This is what this book is about. It's about giving some visual stimulus of suggestions like, this is a concept, and this is the way that many different photographers have approached it. And it's that reason that this book, absolutely, I think is one of the must reads for anybody who wants to improve their photography. The reason I talk about these books like this, that I get so excited, is because it is an unfortunate thing that photography has so much depth and it has so much breadth, and I appreciate not everybody wants to know about the history of photography. Then that is a very niche topic in things. But the more that you look at the photographs outside of what you are normally told about, normally that you see on Instagram, or the tutorials, or the people who are doing the workshop circuits, you know, the same name seemed to crop up time and time again, who are all teaching you how to use off-camera flash. They're not really feeding your visual library with images that are fresh. I've used the analogy in the past where people are talking about having this pool of inspiration that we all drink from. And much like the waterhole in the African savannah, lots of animals come to it and eventually it shrinks and shrinks and shrinks because it doesn't get any rain and it just becomes a sloppy muddy mess. What these books are doing are giving you ideas, giving you outlets to feed that pool of inspiration. So it always remains fresh. Then there is a book that this is the actual dog-eared cover that I've had since I was getting started with photography. This was a set work that we had as students called The History of Photography and Overview. Now it was only published just a couple of years before I started studying photography. I think it's testament to how important and great this book is that it was on a set list already. Now as you may have guessed, it says this is the history of photography. And one of the great things, I say great, it's not great actually, it's one of the awful things, that often come up against when I'm meeting people in the photography world is that they often don't really know many photographers beyond maybe some of the greatest hits as it were. And I say that sort of, I don't mean it's awful that they haven't taken the time to find out. I mean it's awful that it is so hard to find photographers whose work you're not sure of, who you've never heard of. Because how can you go looking for somebody if you don't know who you're looking for? And this book kind of solves that problem. This is my first introduction to photography as a wider thing. It ranges right from the very first photographs, you know, Nietzsche and Daguerre and all that sort of thing. And it doesn't go through the history of photography chronologically, talking in very dry terms about, you know, Fox Talbert and then the cyanotype and all those kind of things. It flits through regarding concepts. So social documents, he says here social documents, photography and social culture. And it goes through people like Eugene Ajay, and I'm just I'm flicking through here to see who else we've got. Edward Curtis, he might be a bit more unfashionable these days. Dionne Arbus is in there. So you can see jumping around, showing you or the reader, are you me, a whole world of photography that is just waiting there to be explored. If you're looking to broaden your interest in photography to be given some rabbit holes to go and fall down, this is great. And all these books here are actually for once when I'm showing books on the channel, they're pretty affordable. I mean, this is like 10 bucks, right? So instead of going and buying a, you know, a cappuccino or whatever it is, do yourself a favor, buy this book and just enjoy somebody giving you an entree into the world of photography. So in this book here, this is letting go of the camera by a guy called Brooks Jensen. This is just text. These are musings and thoughts about photography in a way that gives much like the, I think the written equivalent of kind of often what I talk about that, you know, that gear is not particularly important and how we can use other ideas to influence our photography. I'd certainly like the ones that when he talks about, you know, going to a workshop, how to make the most of a workshop, how it's ridiculous to think that you're going to make a living being an artist and things of that nature. So some of the talking, some of the advice in here, it's a little bit tongue in cheek, but it makes you stop and think and it's enjoyable again to dip in and out of their short essays. Each one stands alone and, you know, this is a man who understands about photography, not necessarily a kind of very, you know, serious earnest sort of way. All these people who write about photography, they're all serious about their photography, but they also understand that you can make it more accessible by just, you know, having a, having a bit of laugh from time to time. So that's letting go of camera by Brooks Jensen and he does actually have a, there's a whole website that they have around this. And I also believe, another bit of trivia, is that Eddie, he runs the longest running photography podcast in the world. So there we go. You know, so Brooks Jensen, that's an investment of 50 bucks maybe, right? You could spend that on a lunch, but looking at those books will give you a huge boost to taking photography, the photography that you already have, and just thinking about it from a slightly different perspective, getting some fresh ideas, you know, and just reinvigorating you. I talked about Joel Myovitz earlier and if you want to see how to create photographs like the Great Master himself, check out this video over here. Thank you ever so much for watching and I will see you again soon.