In Real Life: Six Women Photographers - Leslie Sills

If you've read my bio, you know that I also have a portrait photography business, so I was very interested to read this book about six women in the field, some of whom I've heard about and whose work I've admired, and some of whom I've never even heard of. the artists were Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Lola Alvarez Bravo, Carrie May Weems, Elsa Dorfman, and Sindy Sherman.

My work focuses primarily on people, although I do a little landscape work, but these women have a very broad range, and so it was interesting to read about a variety of approaches to photography and an array of possibilities out there that I don't normally thin about with photograph. Imogen Cunningham, for example, likes to focus on natural objects up really really close, looking at textures and patterns. I do that sometimes, but often if I do, it wasn't really my intent. Dorothea Lange and Lola Alvarez Bravo were recording events to enlighten people. One as an activist, one as a historian.

I liked how this book was put together with lots of pictures interspersed with a good amount of text. Some photography books are really heavy on photos but without much information about them, and sometimes that's ok, but often I want to know more, and this book gave me that.

If you're interested in photography, as a hobby or a career, you can learn a lot from this book, and I'd definitely recommend it.