# Best Theoretical/Philosophical book on photography?



## jodmac (Aug 11, 2011)

Forgive me if this has already been discussed. Are there any classic manifestos on photography that should be required reading for a person aspiring to an MFA?


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## c.cloudwalker (Aug 11, 2011)

I don't know about photo specific but there are two about the arts that I enjoyed quite a bit.

The first one is Leo Tolstoy's "What is Art?" and the second one is "Stealing the Mona Lisa: What Art Stops Us from Seeing" by Darian Leader, a psychoanalyst.


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## Patrice (Aug 11, 2011)

Freeman Patterson: Photography and The Art of Seeing


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## makr (Aug 11, 2011)

Having read several books on photography by Brian Peterson, Brenda Tharp, David Busch and others, I recently purchased a copy of Michael Freeman's _The Photographer's Eye_. It's quite different from the others. Although I've read read less than 1/4 of it, I think it will help improve my composition. Some of it is a bit dry and heady (art and design theory, you know) and I don't buy all of the psychological theory (I'm not sure I can "buy" the Gestalt stuff). Or perhaps I just don't understand it. Over all, I'd recommend it to you as a very good "theoretical/philosophical" photography book.


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## Helen B (Aug 12, 2011)

There are quite a lot of books that would fit. Look at books on photography by Roland Barthes, Victor Burgin, Paul Hill, George Bernard Shaw, Steven Shore, Robert Adams, Frank Gohlke, John Berger, Bill Jay, Gerry Badger, Christopher Pinney, Minor White, David Levi-Strauss, Janet Malcolm, Susan Sontag, Charlotte Cotton, Alan Trachtenberg and also the Camerawork Essays, the series on Landscape: Theory, Contact: Theory and Portrait: Theory by the Lustrum Press. There are a number of exhibition catalogues that re worth reading, such as the one on the New Topographics. Those are the first that come to mind. I'll add more later. Aperture has published a lot of relevant books. Ask if you want specific book titles.

They will all offer a different perspective to most of the photo books already mentioned.

Best,
Helen

Further:

Kitty Hauser: _Shadow Sites_
Stefan Gronert: _The Düsseldorf School_

and although not directly about photography, I have found these to be quite relevant:
Eugen Herrigel: _Zen in the Art of Archery_
Claude Levi-Strauss: _The Raw and the Cooked_ (and others)
Ian Hamilton Finlay: _A Model of Order_
Januchiro Tanizaki: _In Praise of Shadows_
David Batchelor: _Chromophobia_


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