Turn off the computer and read a book over the holiday. Here’s the reading list my contributors compiled (big thanks to Dude). I think we can all take a little time to become better at talking about pictures next year (Thanks Robert). Who knows we may need to defend ourselves.

Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski

Ansel Adams at 100 by John Szarkowski

The Photographer’s Eye by Szarkowski

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

Perception and Imaging, 3rd edition by Dr. Richard Zakia

Photographers on Photography; Lyons, Nathan (ed.)

Photography until Now; Szarkowski, John

History of Photography, From 1839 to the Present; Newhall, Beaumont

The Decisive Moment; Cartier-Bresson, Henri (read the introduction essay)

On Photography; Sontag, Susan

Ways of Seeing; Berger, John

Bystander: A History of Street Photography; Meyerowitz, Joel and Westerbeck, Colin (specialty but a very good book)

What do Pictures Want?; Mitchell, W.J.T.

Richard Avedon: Evidence 1994; Avedon, Richard (read the essays)

Helmut Newton’s autobiography

“The Camera”, “The Negative”, and “The Print” by Ansel Adams

Robert Adam’s “Why People Photograph”

“Beauty in Photography” Robert Adam’s

‘On Being A Photographer’ by David Hurn and Bill Jay

“Creating a Sense of Place” by Joel Meyerowitz

W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance the Life and Work of an American Photographer – by Jim Hughes

Stephen Shore’s recent re-release of “the Nature of Photographs”

The daybooks of Edward Weston

Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity by Ted Orland

California and the West by Charis Wilson and Edward Weston

Updated:

“The Photograph as Contemporary Art” by Charlotte Cotton

L’Amour Fou: Surrealism and Photography; Rosalind Krauss, Jane Livingston and Dawn Ades.

Reflex: A Vik Muniz Primer; Vik Muniz and Lesley Martin

At The Edge of the Light: Thoughts on Photography and Photographers, on Talent and Genius; David Travis

Rebecca Solnit book about Edweard Muybridge’s strange life; it’s called River of Shadows

from http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2007/12/20/photography-books-talking-about-photography/

I think we’re all aware that the portfolio website is a very important tool for photographers and I’ll go so far as to predict that it will soon replace printed portfolios (bold, I know), so I wanted to create a quick reference guide for photographers looking for templates or designers or examples of portfolios that I like.

Flash vs. Html: I love flash. Photos look better in flash and there’s no way around it. There’s an argument floating around about using html so google can read/rank your website better that people seem to be confused about. It’s not so people can find you by name it’s so that people can find your images with google. If your photos are embedded in flash then the search engine doesn’t know you’ve got a killer photo of Richard Branson and when my Creative Director does a google image search to trounce the lame Corbis images I presented yours will not be in the results. Thats a problem. I think you will need a stock and a portfolio website to solve it.

There are other problems with flash as well, like incompatibility and deep linking issues but I still think the image quality trumps all that shit.

Livebooks: I’ve said it before, “I love livebooks.” They revolutionized the online portfolio. Big, vibrant photos and not much else. I’m not shillin’ for them at all and I can honestly say photographers have risen a notch in my book by switching to their product. Contributor Terence Patrick coined it “the black leather portfolio book of the web.” That’s how I feel about it as well. If you can’t beat it, don’t bother.

Famous Photographer Websites: Don’t look to them for inspiration. Check out Martin Schoeller’s website (here). Now google Martin Schoeller (here). Olivier Laude said in a previous post that the ultimate website is endless hits on google.

Ok, here’s what I’ve got. Please add to it and I’ll update.

Template websites
APhotoFolio
SiteWelder
FolioLink
LiveBooks
Other Peoples Pixels
Click Booq
Evirium
Blue Domain
Picaholic
Site Design Works
Big Folio
Parade
Creative Motion Design

Custom designed websites
Robinizer
Group 94
Neon Sky
I House Design

Free designs or DIY
Pixel Post
Movable Type/
Indexhibit
WordPress (Big UP)

My favorite creative sites
Jason Fulford
Matthew Mahon
Tanit Sakakini

The best I’ve seen for displaying photography
Nick Cobbing

Here are some my contributors like
Great flash sites:
Jeff Wall Exhibitiion
Filippas Medhagensund
Lauren Greenfield

Jeremy Cowart
Tom Nagy

Red wrote: HTML rules.
Erik W
Yerin Mok
Eliot Shepard
Alec Soth

First, a good flash site: Todd Hido
Second, a good CSS/HTML site: Graeme Mitchell

Fazal Sheikh
Jacob Holdt

Elizabeth Weinberg.com

from http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/01/31/portfolio-website-design/

A good source for standalone photo essays to publish in a magazine is the upcoming books lists from photo book publishers. A few of the big publishers like Chronicle or W.W. Norton will do photography books but generally the good stuff is with the specialty publishers. It’s interesting to note that the literary publishers are extremely proactive about shopping the first serial rights around to magazines for publicity but it’s rare for a photography book publisher to do that so you’ve got to go look at the upcoming lists yourself and see if there’s something worth pitching to the editor. I’m working on a project now that needs a couple photo essays so I thought I’d share my list:

21ST Editions
Aperture
Arena Editions
Chris Boot
D.A.P.
Dewi Lewis
Farewell
Foil Web
Hassla
J and L
Kehrer Verlag
Lodima
Loosestrife Editions
Monacelli
Nazraeli
Phaidon
Pond Press
Power House pH
Prestel
Quantuck Lane
Radius
Sasquatch
Scalo
Steidl
Taschen
teNeues
Trolley
TV Books
Twin Palms
Umbrage Editions
Watson-Guptill

Photo Eye publishes a newsletter with upcoming releases. Always a good resource.

More in Europe:
Apeiron
Edition Braus
Hatje Catz
Lunwerg
Mets & Schlit
Peliti Associati

from http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/05/21/photo-book-publishers/