Customer Reviews

William Albert Allard: The Photographic Essay (American Photographer Master Series)

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The great thing about this photo book is that Allard provides you with a continous dialogue along with the photos about how he got the shots, what was going on, etc. As an amateur photographer, I was extremely inspired by "The Photographic Essay" to continue my photographic exploits with renewed vigor.

The pages of "The Photographic Essay" come alive with photos from Mississippi, the Basques, Out West, Oaxaca, Mexico, Peru, and Australia. Allard focuses on human emotion and tends to go for photos that other photographers wouldn't attempt--ones where lighting conditions are poor and in situations that others wouldn't get into like Allard does. The result is a rich, vibrant, honest mood.

I would recommend this book to anybody interested in photography, National Geographic magazine, or cultural studies.

In my mind this book is still the definitive work of what documentary photography is and should be about. It had been the most influential and inspiring book in my development as a photographer, and while there are larger tomes and more glamorous volumes of photography, this one is personal, informative and most of all, all about the images - each one stands alone as a work of art, yet exhibiting the power and added value of being part of a group of images that tell the story provocatively, evocatively and memorably. If you want a photo book for your own pleasure, this is it. If you want one merely to set on the coffee table to impress your art friends, maybe you should look elsewhere....

I've owned a lot of photo books, all which have provided me inspiration in my journey as a photographer, but nothing compares to this title, which I have revisited over and over again over the last twenty+ years. Bill is not only a great photographer who does things with light and film that others only dream of, but also expresses a personal insight into the process that has proved invaluable. If photography for you is an obsession and not just a passion, if you want to learn to tell a story and not just make another pretty picture, this is a book that has to be at hands reach. I'm rereading it again this weekend and I can honestly say that I'll probably derive something new from it yet again that I didn't pick up the last time I read it. That's what a great book should be and this certainly fits the bill.