23 books like Stephen Wilkes. Day to Night

By Stephen Wilkes (photographer), Lyle Rexer,

Here are 23 books that Stephen Wilkes. Day to Night fans have personally recommended if you like Stephen Wilkes. Day to Night. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Jim Wagner, Taos: An American Artist

Sara Frances Author Of Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life from Northern New Mexico, the Four Corners and the West

From my list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text.

Why am I passionate about this?

After flirting with careers as an archaeologist, pilot, concert pianist, and diplomat, I settled on photographer after just a few month’s residence in Heidelberg, Germany, while studying for my Masters in Comparative Literature. The camera provided close personal interaction with people, while hearing their stories from a wide variety of cultural perspectives and social environments. Introduced by parents, I formed an obsession with opera, Native American drum music, vinyl recordings, and historic places, particularly Georgia O’Keeffe country, “south of the border” from our Colorado base. My family of musicians and artists stopped, listened, and loved the light and land of the Four Corners. I self-define as a photojournalist-poet, a griot.

Sara's book list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text

Sara Frances Why did Sara love this book?

The only “non-stuffy” art book I know!

Up close and personal acquaintance with the late irreverent, prolific, and totally charming painter, who also sculpted and worked in wood and silver. No art-speak, just an amazing character, extolled by a master of pictures in words. Wealth of reproductions.

You’ll want to buy a painting once you’ve read the book.

By Stephen M Parks,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Jim Wagner, Taos as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

JIM WAGNER, TAOS: AN AMERICAN ARTIST TAOS TAOS ARTISTS


Book cover of Colorado Black on White

Sara Frances Author Of Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life from Northern New Mexico, the Four Corners and the West

From my list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text.

Why am I passionate about this?

After flirting with careers as an archaeologist, pilot, concert pianist, and diplomat, I settled on photographer after just a few month’s residence in Heidelberg, Germany, while studying for my Masters in Comparative Literature. The camera provided close personal interaction with people, while hearing their stories from a wide variety of cultural perspectives and social environments. Introduced by parents, I formed an obsession with opera, Native American drum music, vinyl recordings, and historic places, particularly Georgia O’Keeffe country, “south of the border” from our Colorado base. My family of musicians and artists stopped, listened, and loved the light and land of the Four Corners. I self-define as a photojournalist-poet, a griot.

Sara's book list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text

Sara Frances Why did Sara love this book?

Of prolific nature photographer Fielder’s many books, this is my fav.

It commands attention, a gift to be treasured, big, bold, luxurious. You’ll drown in the luscious reproductions, as though you were on the trail with him!

The unexpected bonus: his commentary tells you about his experiences loose in the wild, how chance weather patterns and animals made for dramatic imagery, his devotion to craft, and sheer delight in tramping the land of the West.

By John Fielder,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Colorado Black on White as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

John Fielder is Colorado's preeminent nature photographer. Colorado Black on White is his 50th Colorado book. In the mold of Colorado's best-selling book of all time, Colorado 1870-2000, Fielder represents his state exclusively in black and white. He edited 230 color images from his life's work in Colorado over the past 40 years, and rendered each in blacks, whites, and subtle tones of gray. Without the distraction of color, the viewer engages the shapes, textures, lines, and edges of this most scenic of states as never before.

Divided into eight chapters, Fielder spares no subject endemic to his adopted state.…


Book cover of Beneath the Roses

Sara Frances Author Of Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life from Northern New Mexico, the Four Corners and the West

From my list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text.

Why am I passionate about this?

After flirting with careers as an archaeologist, pilot, concert pianist, and diplomat, I settled on photographer after just a few month’s residence in Heidelberg, Germany, while studying for my Masters in Comparative Literature. The camera provided close personal interaction with people, while hearing their stories from a wide variety of cultural perspectives and social environments. Introduced by parents, I formed an obsession with opera, Native American drum music, vinyl recordings, and historic places, particularly Georgia O’Keeffe country, “south of the border” from our Colorado base. My family of musicians and artists stopped, listened, and loved the light and land of the Four Corners. I self-define as a photojournalist-poet, a griot.

Sara's book list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text

Sara Frances Why did Sara love this book?

Quirky, outrageous, magnificent, shocking, mysterious.

Crewdson’s huge imagery (and huge book) is extreme storytelling, a life history of the characters who people his cinematic productions. From concept to final image requires a full movie set production. The result is a vision of a strange, enigmatic event or situation, like a window suddenly opened to an alternative life.

I find that each image requires many minutes of concentration to see details and allow one’s imagination to work, unwinding the mystery to which we are unexpectedly privy.

By Gregory Crewdson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Beneath the Roses as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Best known for his elaborately choreographed, large-scale photographs, Gregory Crewdson is one of the most exciting and important artists working today. The images that comprise Crewdson's new series, "Beneath the Roses," take place in the homes, streets, and forests of unnamed small towns. The photographs portray emotionally charged moments of seemingly ordinary individuals caught in ambiguous and often disquieting circumstances. Both epic in scale and intimate in scope, these visually breathtaking photographs blur the distinctions between cinema and photography, reality and fantasy, what has happened and what is to come.Beneath the Roses features an essay by acclaimed fiction writer Russell…


Book cover of Vasily Klyukin: Live Sculpture

Sara Frances Author Of Unplugged Voices: 125 Tales of Art and Life from Northern New Mexico, the Four Corners and the West

From my list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text.

Why am I passionate about this?

After flirting with careers as an archaeologist, pilot, concert pianist, and diplomat, I settled on photographer after just a few month’s residence in Heidelberg, Germany, while studying for my Masters in Comparative Literature. The camera provided close personal interaction with people, while hearing their stories from a wide variety of cultural perspectives and social environments. Introduced by parents, I formed an obsession with opera, Native American drum music, vinyl recordings, and historic places, particularly Georgia O’Keeffe country, “south of the border” from our Colorado base. My family of musicians and artists stopped, listened, and loved the light and land of the Four Corners. I self-define as a photojournalist-poet, a griot.

Sara's book list on beautiful imagery and intriguing text

Sara Frances Why did Sara love this book?

I first met Klyukin’s huge, foldable-section metal sculptures at the Venice Biennale.

I had heard of him, but was overwhelmed by the size and quantity—plus his writings that appeared on ceiling-height, painted fabric banners. Particularly of note: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and his collection called In Dante Veritas, which pulls the characters and their sins out of Dante’s Inferno, and updates them in sculpture and words to the 21st Century.

By Vasily Klyukin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Vasily Klyukin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This book presents the extraordinary three-dimensional “live sculptures” by the Russian architect, designer, writer and artist.

Having some engineering experience, Klyukin was able to experiment and derive a concept of connecting steel sheets on a non-existent, speculative axis without any actual fasteners. The principle of mobility of each individual piece was the basis for this technological innovation. Each sculpture created without physical fasteners is easily assembled and disassembled. This new experience brought new satisfaction. One of the statuettes done using the “live sculpture” technique, the Golden Madonnina, was used as the official award during Milan Design Week in 2017, a…


Book cover of The Human Planet: Earth at the Dawn of the Anthropocene

Jeffrey Milstein Author Of London from the Air

From my list on aerial photography books.

Why am I passionate about this?

When I was young, my passions were flying and art. I became a pilot at age 17. Later, I became an architect, and much later, in 2000, I decided to become a fine art photographer. After ten years of shooting from the ground, I decided to take to the air again and began shooting aerial photographs, primarily of cities. I now have three aerial books published: LA NY, Thames & Hudson, Paris From the Air, Rizzoli, and London From the Air, Rizzoli. My aerial photographs are exhibited and collected throughout the world.

Jeffrey's book list on aerial photography books

Jeffrey Milstein Why did Jeffrey love this book?

George Steinmetz is a pioneer in a risky type of aerial photography.

He uses a motorized paraglider that uses a small gas engine driving a propellor strapped to his back, while a parachute-like fabric wing provides the lift. I am in awe of how he has traveled the world with this setup, getting photographs from low altitudes that are truly amazing. He has traveled to every continent, going to seemingly impossible places. The book features incredible photos of the natural landscape as well as the man-made landscape. Some of my favorites are the pyramids of Egypt, the indigenous architecture and animal migrations in Africa, the deserts of Saudi Arabia, the camel salt caravans, and the amazing Brazil dune-scape.

I cannot overstate the value of this book if you want to see the world in a way you have never seen. I am amazed by the photos. These were taken before…

By George Steinmetz, Andrew Revkin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Human Planet as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A dynamic aerial exploration of our changing planet, published on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day

The Human Planet is a sweeping visual chronicle of the Earth today from a photographer who has circled the globe to report on such urgent issues as climate change, sustainable agriculture, and the ever-expanding human footprint. George Steinmetz is at home on every continent, documenting both untrammeled nature and the human project that relentlessly redesigns the planet in its quest to build shelter, grow food, generate energy, and create beauty through art and architecture. In his images, accompanied by authoritative text by renowned science…


Book cover of Landscape

Nubar Alexanian Author Of Stones In the Road: Photographs of Peru

From my list on the poetry in documentary photographs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been a documentary photographer for the past 50 years and my work has been featured in major magazines in the United States and Europe including The New York Times Magazine, Life, Fortune, Geo, Time & Newsweek, and others. I have six books in print, including JAZZ with Wynton Marsalis & Nonfiction Photographs with filmmaker Errol Morris. I love teaching photography and co-founded the Essex Photographic Workshop in 1975. My work is in many collections, including The Peabody Essex Museum, The Worcester Art Museum, Polaroid Collection, Agfa Corporation, Participant Productions, Bose Corporation, Bibliotheque Nacionale, France. Solo exhibitions of my work include the Walker Art Center, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Burden Gallery.

Nubar's book list on the poetry in documentary photographs

Nubar Alexanian Why did Nubar love this book?

I have loved this book of black & white photographs for nearly 5 decades and still look at it often. It’s like a book of poetry, meant to be lived with rather than simply looked at one or twice. What I like is how quiet these images are while at the same time being incredibly compelling. I see something new in these images almost every time I look at them.  What could be better in a book of photographs? What I’ve learned is that photographs embrace poetry more naturally than narrative storytelling. Yes—it's a picture of a parsnip—but is that an eye in the middle of it looking back at me? 

By Paul Caponigro,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Landscape as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of Living with Vincent van Gogh: The homes and landscapes that shaped the artist

Caroline Cauchi Author Of Mrs Van Gogh

From my list on truly understanding the real Vincent Van Gogh.

Why am I passionate about this?

As well as being a novelist (ten published books to date), I’m a Senior Lecturer in Prose at Liverpool John Moores University. My current academic fields of interest are the role Johanna van Gogh-Bonger played in Vincent’s rise to fame, the silencing of women involved in creative pursuits, and the consideration of a novelist’s ethical and moral responsibilities when fictionalising a real life. My true passion lies in the creative uncovering of those erased stories, and in adding to the emerging conversation. That’s why I’ve shifted from writing contemporary to historical novels. I’m also known as the international, bestselling author Caroline Smailes (The Drowning of Arthur Braxton).

Caroline's book list on truly understanding the real Vincent Van Gogh

Caroline Cauchi Why did Caroline love this book?

Martin Bailey is an expert on all things Van Gogh, and any of his books could have been recommended.

This one though - if we are learning about influences that have shaped and guided and disconcerted Vincent - has to be considered. To know the artist is to understand the numerous homes and landscapes that have shaped and influenced both him and his art. In an era when people rarely left the area where they were born, Van Gogh was both a traveller and unsettled.

This book made me truly consider what that might actually mean.

By Martin Bailey,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Living with Vincent van Gogh as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Vincent van Gogh was a restless soul. He spent his twenties searching for a vocation and once he had determined to become an artist, he remained a traveller, always seeking fresh places for the inspiration and opportunities he needed to create his work.

Living with Vincent van Gogh tells the story of the great artist's life through the lens of the places where he lived and worked, including Amsterdam, London, Paris and Provence, and examines the impact of these cityscapes and landscapes on his creative output. Featuring artworks, unpublished archival documents and contemporary landscape photography, this book provides unique insight…


Book cover of Reconstructing the View: The Grand Canyon Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe

Michael Engelhard Author Of No Walk in the Park: Seeking Thrills, Eco-Wisdom, and Legacies in the Grand Canyon

From my list on Grand Canyon books by a former canyon guide.

Why am I passionate about this?

I worked for 25 years as a wilderness guide and outdoor educator on the Colorado Plateau and in Alaska, and the Grand Canyon is my favorite national park and one of my two favorite places on earth (the other being Alaska’s Brooks Range). My background in cultural anthropology has given me a deeper appreciation of what it took for indigenous peoples to make a living inside the canyon. And it’s a humbling perspective indeed. When I lived in Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon was my “backyard” weekend wilderness. I’m still drawn there and visit at least once a year, even while living up north.

Michael's book list on Grand Canyon books by a former canyon guide

Michael Engelhard Why did Michael love this book?

Even the most perfect pictures simply cannot do the canyon justice—none of mine ever have. But the photographic montages of Klett and Wolfe come close; fusing historical shots with contemporary ones they took at the same location, from the same angle, they manage to show what impresses me most in the grand gorge: its timelessness, how little the geology and even the vegetation changes over decades.

This really puts human life into perspective. The images in this coffee table book for the discerning are daring, whimsical, playful, and experimental, all of which are qualities that the best guides and canyoneers display.

By Rebecca A. Senf, Stephen J. Pyne,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Reconstructing the View as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Using landscape photography to reflect on broader notions of culture, the passage of time, and the construction of perception, photographers Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe spent five years exploring the Grand Canyon for their most recent project, "Reconstructing the View". The team's landscape photographs are based on the practice of rephotography, in which they identify sites of historic photographs and make new photographs of those precise locations. Klett and Wolfe referenced a wealth of images of the canyon, ranging from historical photographs and drawings by William Bell and William Henry Holmes, to well-known artworks by Edward Weston and Ansel Adams,…


Book cover of American Photography (Oxford History of Art)

Mick Gidley Author Of The Grass Shall Grow: Helen Post Photographs the Native American West

From my list on American photography.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a hopeless photographer. But I have a passion for looking at photographs, for trying to understand how good ones work. They are not just momentary slices of life but structured artefacts, sometimes technically interesting, that in myriad ways reflect the society that produced them. I studied aspects of US cultural history at three universities. After devoting the first part of my academic career to American literature, in the second half – during which, supported by wonderful fellowships, I spent much time rooting in archives – I gave myself up to American photography. I have learnt much from each of the books I commend here. 

Mick's book list on American photography

Mick Gidley Why did Mick love this book?

This book is a lively, questioning, and comprehensive survey of American photography, from its beginnings to the present. It analyzes achievements in each of the genres, from portraiture, through landscape, to documentary, fashion, etc. It treats individual photographic artists, from Avedon to Weegee, from the views of New York taken by Berenice Abbott to J.T. Zealy’s likenesses of enslaved Africans. American Photography is always concerned to underscore what photographs have to tell us about major aspects of American culture: race and ethnicity, gender and identity, business and technology, religion, and region. It also has numerous well-reproduced images; illuminating sidebars and boxes on such topics as the daguerreotype or picture magazines; a helpful timeline; and notes on further reading and viewing. The book was expanded and retitled as Photography in America in 2015, but the first edition still holds up. 

By Miles Orvell,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked American Photography (Oxford History of Art) as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This lively new survey offers fresh insights into 150 years of American photography, placing it in its cultural context for the first time. Orvell examinines this fascinating subject through portraiture and landscape photography, eamily albums and memory, and analyses the particularly 'American' way in which American photographers have viewed the world around them. Combining a clear overview of the changing nature of photographic thinking and practice in this period, with an exploration of key concepts, the result is the first coherent history of American photography, which examines issues such as the nature of photographic exploitation, experimental techniques, the power of…


Book cover of The Truth: The Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth, so Help Me...

Tricia Wennell Author Of Because It Didn't Stop When It Ended

From my list on the impact of abuse in childhood from a survivor.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a survivor of repeated physical, psychological, and sexual abuse in childhood and have significant lived experience of the long-lasting and devastating impact of abuse. I was a social worker for 27 years and am a co-founder of The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC). In my 27 years in social work and 20 years involvement in NAPAC I heard of many accounts from adult survivors of various types of abuse. One of the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is to introduce Mandatory Reporting. I believe this is a must to help prevent and or reduce the risk of abuse for our children at the earliest possible stage.

Tricia's book list on the impact of abuse in childhood from a survivor

Tricia Wennell Why did Tricia love this book?

In this well-written memoir, Peter talks about his life where abuse was commonplace and why he set up a National Charity (NAPAC) to address a significant gap in support for adults abused in childhood.

Through his efforts he earned an important media platform, was an international voice for survivors, and had a one-to-one meeting with the Pope. Everything changed when he was falsely accused and then silenced by powerful media which adds a dimension that could have destroyed a less resilient person. I know because he is my partner and we have shared our lives working for the survivor cause for 27 years.

He talks of me as a source of strength praising me as his wife several times and gives my book a glowing mention! Good enough reason for me to love and recommend his book but not why I do. It is because he finally found the courage…

By Peter E. Saunders,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Truth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Peter Saunders was raised in a devout Catholic family in London, an upbringing fraught with oppression and abuse. Unable to find support in adulthood, Peter set up a major national charity for adults abused in childhood. He battled with the Church for many years over its persistent denials and cover-ups regarding abuse throughout its ranks across the globe.

Peter made no secret of his views and was astonished to receive an invite to meet Pope Francis at the Vatican in July 2014. The meeting was amicable, and Peter was asked to join the Pope's child protection commission, but it led…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and documentary photography?

11,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and documentary photography.

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