Photobook Finds

Photobook Finds Hunting the stacks for photobooks.

Lee Friedlander, Self Portrait. Signed. I found this upstairs at Moe's Books in Berkeley, CA in Berkeley for $75, which ...
08/10/2026

Lee Friedlander, Self Portrait. Signed. I found this upstairs at Moe's Books in Berkeley, CA in Berkeley for $75, which means I am officially way too comfortable paying almost $100 for a photobook. It needs to stop. There was a time when finding a great book for $10 felt like a genuine victory. Now apparently I need a signed Lee Friedlander to feel like I got a deal.

Originally published in 1970, Self Portrait is one of those books that feels completely understated and also essential. Friedlander doesn’t really photograph himself so much as leave evidence of himself behind: shadows, reflections, silhouettes, fragments and obstructions.

What I love about it is how much it feels like a precursor to Mannequin, or even America by Car where Friedlander pushes his layering of foreground and background even further. In Self Portrait, he’s already figuring out how to make multiple images and planes occupy the same frame.

John Szarkowski’s afterword gets at something important here: these aren’t really self-portraits in the traditional sense. They’re more like a record of Friedlander’s presence, a shadow, a reflection, a kind of photographic signature saying: I was here.

Now I just need to go back to finding $10 books.

I found this copy of British Photography from the Thatcher Years at the San Francisco Art Book Fair for $20 on the Frien...
08/04/2026

I found this copy of British Photography from the Thatcher Years at the San Francisco Art Book Fair for $20 on the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library table. It was one of four books I picked up there.

Ironically, at a fair filled with brand-new releases and self-published books, I found myself spending most of my time digging through older titles. Maybe it’s because these books come with history already attached to them.

Published by MoMA in conjunction with a 1991 exhibition curated by Susan Kismaric, this slim catalog captured a pivotal moment in British photography. Thatcher’s policies had reshaped Britain economically and socially, and a new generation of photographers responded, not with slogans or easy political statements, but with something more nuanced.

John Davies photographed landscapes where industry and countryside uneasily coexisted. Chris Killip Photography Trust documented communities devastated by deindustrialization. Paul Graham explored the quiet tension of everyday life in Northern Ireland. Graham Smith turned his camera toward friends and neighbors in working-class pubs. And Martin Parr showed that consumerism could be just as revealing as poverty.

What struck me most was Kismaric’s observation that these photographers no longer looked at the other. They photographed the people and places closest to them. Their work wasn’t detached journalism. It was personal. Affectionate. Critical. Honest.

One tip for collectors: never walk past an exhibition catalog from MoMA, the Getty, ICP, or another major institution without at least taking a closer look, especially if it was published in the ‘80s or early ‘90s. These books weren’t just documenting exhibitions; they were often defining the photographic conversation of their time. Today, they remain some of the smartest—and most affordable—books you can add to a collection.

johndavies

I’m honored to be working with Bill Owens Photography on a special print series and artist talk this weekend at the SAN ...
07/25/2026

I’m honored to be working with Bill Owens Photography on a special print series and artist talk this weekend at the SAN FRANCISCO ART BOOK FAIR . Print sale and signing tomorrow 1-3. And Sunday 12-2 at Casemore Gallery . And then an artist talk Sunday at 3pm in the Lounge. Come say hi to Bill!!

Urban Camper - David Choong Lee . I found this self-published gem in Santa Rosa for $30.Years before homelessness became...
06/20/2026

Urban Camper - David Choong Lee . I found this self-published gem in Santa Rosa for $30.

Years before homelessness became one of the defining visual and political subjects of San Francisco, artist David Choong Lee was documenting people living on the margins of the city. Lee’s title reframes SF homeless as “urban campers” inhabitants of a parallel landscape hidden in plain sight.

The book as an object is part of the story. Wrapped in raw cardboard with a simple blue tent icon, the book feels less like a photobook and more like a field guide or survival manual. Before you’ve even opened it, the design has already made its point.

Published in 2005 by Lee’s own 2nd Round Productions, Urban Camper captures a version of SF that has largely disappeared. Because this book never passed through Amazon, a major publisher, or a library indexing system, it is effectively invisible to modern search algorithms. I can’t find another copy of this or any additional info online. If you know more please comment below.

artistbook

Ed Ruscha -  Seven Products, Twentyfive Apartments, Three Palm Trees, Six Rooftops and One Aerial View. Why does this wo...
06/06/2026

Ed Ruscha -  Seven Products, Twentyfive Apartments, Three Palm Trees, Six Rooftops and One Aerial View. Why does this work? On paper, it sounds ridiculous. Seven products. Twenty-five apartments. Three palm trees. Six rooftops. One aerial view.

That’s not a title. It’s an inventory. But I guess that’s the point. Ruscha has spent decades turning LA into an anthropological study. Not photographing the spectacular, but cataloging the ordinary. Gas stations. Parking lots. Apartment buildings. Palm trees. Things most people walk past without seeing.
The repetition is what makes it art. One apartment building is a photograph. Twenty-five apartments become a typology. A portrait of a city. A way of seeing. Of course, another question lingers in the back of my mind: how much of this works because it’s genuinely innovative, and how much works because it’s Ed Ruscha?
Could an unknown photographer publish a book called Three Palm Trees and have the art world care? But then again, Ruscha wasn’t always Ed Ruscha. At some point, he was just a guy looking at things nobody else thought were worth looking at. The permission came later. Found this copy at in NYC last week for around $80. 

James Nachtwey - Ground Level. James is widely considered the GOAT of photojournalism. His eye, his framing, his instinc...
06/06/2026

James Nachtwey - Ground Level. James is widely considered the GOAT of photojournalism. His eye, his framing, his instinct for story, and his ability to find humanity in the darkest corners of the world are unmatched. Which is why it’s always surprised me how few books he’s actually produced.I understand it. The work itself has always seemed more important to than the object. But I also believe photographers, students, and collectors should have the opportunity to live with this work. There is simply too much to learn from it.If you haven’t seen War Photographer, watch it. It’s a quiet stroll through hell alongside James. You watch him work in real time, making decisions, adapting to chaos, finding order inside unimaginable situations. It’s one of the most educational films on photography ever made IMHO.Last week, while in New York, I made my required pilgrimage to Books, spent time with and scavenged the shelves which is when I spotted a copy of Ground Level for $75. I couldn’t buy it fast enough.A reminder that some books aren’t just books. They’re master classes. And every time I find one of Nachtwey’s, it feels like discovering a missing piece of photographic history.

Let There Be a World - Felix Greene. Published in 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. What’s fascinating i...
05/23/2026

Let There Be a World - Felix Greene. Published in 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis. What’s fascinating isn’t just the subject matter, it’s the idea of photography as persuasion. Greene curated photographs from multiple sources into a visual argument against nuclear war to make the unthinkable feel personal. Children, families, culture, civilization itself, everything that stood to be lost. 

The fact that this book was published immediately after the missile crisis gives it an urgency that’s hard to miss. It wasn’t looking back at a historical event, it was speaking to people who had just lived through what many believed might be the end of the world.

More than sixty years later, nuclear weapons are once again dominating headlines, from Iran and Israel to ongoing concerns about Russia, North Korea, and the modernization of nuclear arsenals worldwide. The names and politics have changed, but the central question Greene posed remains the same: what is worth risking for a weapon that could end everything?

A powerful reminder that photography doesn’t just document history. Sometimes it tries to prevent it. Found this book in Santa Rosa, CA for $6. 

Bernard Plossu’s Go West helped introduce European audiences to a completely different way of seeing the American West.....
05/23/2026

Bernard Plossu’s Go West helped introduce European audiences to a completely different way of seeing the American West.. Made during his travels from Santa Fe to California in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. It’s one of the key European photobooks of the 1970s, an important bridge between the Beat-inspired wandering of Robert Frank and the color-road-trip photography that would become central to contemporary photobook culture.
At a time when most photographs of the West were documentary or landscape-driven, and color photography was still fighting for artistic legitimacy, Plossu embraced something more personal. His images feel spontaneous and deeply subjective.

His work anticipated much of what later became known as the snapshot aesthetic. Many younger photographers who came after him would embrace the idea that a photograph could be personal rather than decisive or explanatory. The loose “snapshot aesthetic” that so many photographers chase now was here decades before Instagram. A reminder that some of the freshest photography was made long before we all had cameras in our pockets. I bought this last summer at while on a trip to Paris with the fam.

newcolorphotography americanwest route66 photohistory streetphotography snapshotaesthetic bookstagram photobookcollector

Before Peggy Nolan released Juggling Is Easy with , the book that deservedly won a ton of awards and put more people on...
05/16/2026

Before Peggy Nolan released Juggling Is Easy with , the book that deservedly won a ton of awards and put more people onto her work, there was Real Pictures: Tales of a Badass Grandma.

This book feels rawer, stranger, and maybe even more personal. Nolan documents everyday life with an eye for intimacy, and chaos, the kind of moments most people overlook or edit out entirely. Family scenes, humor, grit. It all feels refreshingly unfiltered.

There’s no attempt to romanticize life or make it cleaner than it is. Her images embrace mess, aging and the weird poetry of ordinary American life.

And “badass grandma” feels accurate, not as branding, but as attitude. You can feel someone behind the camera who has lived a lot, seen a lot, and has zero interest in pretending otherwise.

I bought this on Amazon for around $30. I think there are still a few copies left. I ended up meeting Peggy at the SFABF a few years ago and she graciously signed my copy. She’s such a badass.

Many Are Called - Walker Evans. 1966. Between 1938–1941, Evans rode the New York City Subway with a camera hidden beneat...
05/15/2026

Many Are Called - Walker Evans. 1966.

Between 1938–1941, Evans rode the New York City Subway with a camera hidden beneath his coat, the lens peeking through a buttonhole. No eye contact. No posing. No performance. Just commuters lost in their own thoughts—tired, guarded, bored, elegant, disconnected, vulnerable.

The setup feels almost like an early spy cam: covert photography long before surveillance culture or the idea that every mundane moment might be documented. The technical ingenuity alone is fascinating, but what makes these images endure is how human they feel. These riders weren’t curating themselves for an audience. They weren’t scrolling. They weren’t filming strangers for content. They were simply there.

You can feel the weight of waiting. The silence. The absence of digital distraction. People staring into space instead of screens.

Evans captures a version of public life that feels almost extinct.

An unremarkable subway ride turned into one of photography’s most remarkable acts of observation.

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