# Photography books

> A reading list on photography from 2002: Berger, Mitchell's The Reconfigured Eye, Ritchin, Hockney's Cameraworks and monographs on Graham, Gursky and Shulman.

- Page: https://www.elasticspace.com/2002/09/photography/
- Author: Timo Arnall (https://www.elasticspace.com/)
- Section: Notes (https://www.elasticspace.com/notes/)
- Published: 2002-09-22
- Updated: 2026-07-05
- Tags: Art, Books, Photography
- Site map for agents: https://www.elasticspace.com/llms.txt

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This is one of a series of reading lists I put together between 2002 and 2004 when I was starting out in interaction and experience design, building out a personal canon from books I was buying, borrowing from libraries, or lending to students. The lists are grouped by topic. Photography has always run parallel to my design practice, and this list is the shelf I was building then: theory, practice, and the monographs I was learning from.

Berger’s two books, Ways of Seeing and Another Way of Telling (the latter with Jean Mohr), are the essential reading. Mitchell’s The Reconfigured Eye is the clearest book on what photography became when it went digital. Hockney’s Cameraworks is the photographer’s-eye-view on composite image-making. The rest are monographs I was returning to: Graham, Gursky, Shulman on Modernism.

The Amazon links below are what I had at the time, most will be dead now, but the ISBNs will find you a copy.

### Another Way of Telling

John Berger, Jean Mohr.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679737243/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679737243/elasticspace-20)

### Ways of Seeing

John Berger.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140135154/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140135154/elasticspace-20)

### The Reconfigured Eye

William J. Mitchell.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262631601/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262631601/elasticspace-20)

### In Our Own Image

Fred Ritchin.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0893813982/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0893813982/elasticspace-20)

### Paul Graham

Paul Graham, Andrew Wilson.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0714835501/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0714835501/elasticspace-20)

### Andreas Gursky: Photographs from 1984 to the Present

Marie Luise Syring et al.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/3823854704/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3823854704/elasticspace-20)

### Modernism Rediscovered

Pierluigi Serraino, Julius Shulman.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/3822864153/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/3822864153/elasticspace-20)

### Cameraworks

David Hockney.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394537335/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394537335/elasticspace-20)

### Lomo: Just Shoot

Fabian Monheim.
[amazon.co.uk](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861542305/elasticspace-21) / [amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1861542305/elasticspace-20)