Magnum Contact Sheets

This is the best photography book of 2011 by a long-shot—not because the others were poor but because this one is just so good, so comprehensive, so big, so full of iconic photos and contact sheets. Part of the skill in being a real photographer comes from possessing the ability to effectively edit photos, and I’ve yet to see a better, more beautiful expression of the editing process than the one you’ll find here.

Buy Magnum Contact Sheets

Bootstraps

Bootstraps describe themselves as a band from Los Angeles. This video for their song, “Fortyfive” is low budget, but it’s not low on quality or emotion. Have a listen.

Bootstraps Music on Tumblr
Buy Bootstraps’ self-titled debut

Blue Nights by Joan Didion

I’ve read several works by Joan Didion over the years, but this is the one that made me really understand why people are so fanatical about her style—the one that made me fanatical about her style.

“In theory these mementos serve to bring back the moment.

In fact they serve only to make clear how inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here.

How inadequately I appreciated the moment when it was here is something else I could never afford to see.”

Buy Blue Nights by Joan Didion