“What are the best books about the history of photography?” We looked at 12 different photography history books and came away with 139 different titles.

An article of words about books about pictures that are stationary shots of events in time. To be honest we aren’t really going anywhere with this, the list and the books on it speak for themselves, but going straight into a list can sometimes look awkward so that is why there is text here. If you enjoy early photography, collections of old photographs, the history of the craft, and anything else that has to do with the art and history of photography, you can find it in one of the books listed below.

Below you can find the top 12 photography history books with images and links, with the remaining 127 titles and the sources at the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

The Best Books About the History of Photography

12.) A Short Course in Photography by Barbara London and Jim Stone

Lists It Appears On:

• Hongkiat
• Moorpark College Photography

This brief title demonstrates greater emphasis on the most up-to-date learning techniques, allowing students to keep up with modern technology. A Short Course in Photography: Digital teaches readers to emphasize their choices in picture making by presenting in depth basic techniques of photography. In additional to covering the basic techniques of photography, this title covers the impact of computers on this important art form.

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11.) Best Business Practices for Photographers by John Harrington

Lists It Appears On:

• Hongkiat
• Popular Photography

A follow-up to the successful and acclaimed “Best Business Practices for Photographers”, this updated and expanded edition serves as an even more comprehensive guide to achieving financial success and personal satisfaction in your business as a photographer. Included in this new edition are sections on licensing your work, making the career change from a staff photographer to a freelancer, surviving an IRS audit, and more. This book includes best practices in interacting with clients, negotiating contracts and licenses, and business operations. “Best Business Practices for Photographers, Second Edition” is the key to a successful career in photography.

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10.) History of Photography by Peter Turner

Lists It Appears On:

• Art-Support
• Open Learn

“History of Photography” traces the development of the camera from the daguerreotype to the computer-analyses image, from Mathew Brady, Timothy O’Sullivan and Julia Margaret Cameron to Cecil Beaton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams and David Bailey. Illustrated with over 300 duotones and color photographs, this book will delight everyone who owns a camera.

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9.) Man Ray by Man Ray

Lists It Appears On:

• Gear Patrol
• Popular Photography

This text explores the photographic career of Man Ray whose fertile artistic impulse has made him equally celebrated as a painter, sculptor, writer and film-maker. Taking up photography in 1915 for the purpose of reproducing his paintings, he earned money doing the same for others when he went to live and work in Paris in 1921. This led to a career in photography ranging from portraits of celebrated artists, musicians and writers such as Andre breton, Marcel Duchamp, Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg, T.S. Elliot and Gertrude Stein, to the pictures using light effects outside the camera for which he is famous: cliche-verres, rayographs and solarizations. Alongside many of Man-Ray’s classic images, this collection presents a huge number of less familiar photographs, including portraits of Virginia Woolf and of Antonin Artaud and a large selection of erotic pictures. Most of these are from the collection of Lucien Treillard, a personal friend who worked with the artist over many years cataloguing and archiving his photographs.

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8.) Photography: An Illustrated History by Martin W. Sandler

Lists It Appears On:

• Art-Support
• Questia

Presents the history of photography from the daguerreotypes of the mid-1800s to its acceptance as an art form and more.

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7.) The Origins of Photography by Helmut Gernsheim

Lists It Appears On:

• Art-Support
• Open Learn

Gernsheim’s The Origins of Photography (also titled The History of Photography) is a standard work on photography’s history, made richer by Hugo Gernsheim’s long history as the world’s premier collector/archivist.

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6.) The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski

Lists It Appears On:

• Hongkiat
• Photonlab

The Photographer’s Eye by John Szarkowski is a twentieth-century classic–an indispensable introduction to the visual language of photography. Based on a landmark exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1964, and originally published in 1966, the book has long been out of print. It is now available again to a new generation of photographers and lovers of photography in this duotone printing that closely follows the original.

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5.) The Photography Book by Phaidon Press

Lists It Appears On:

• Hongkiat
• Photonlab

This edition of The Photography Book, containing every sort of photography, from pictures of famous events such as the Royal Wedding and the first landing on the moon, to familiar shots by the masters of photography such as Bill Brandt and Henri Cartier-Bresson.

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1. (Tie) A World History of Photography by Naomi Rosenblum

Lists It Appears On:

• Art-Support
• Moorpark College Photography
• Photonlab

Naomi Rosenblum’s classic text investigates all aspects of photography — aesthetic, documentary, commercial, and technical — while placing photos in their historical context. Included among the more than 800 photographs by men and women are both little-known and celebrated masterpieces, arranged in stimulating juxtapositions that illuminate their visual power. Authoritative and unbiased, Rosenblum’s chronicle of photography both chronologically and thematically traces the evolution of this still-young art form. Exploring the diverse roles that photography has played in the communication of ideas, Rosenblum devotes special attention to topics such as portraiture, documentation, advertising, and photojournalism, and to the camera as a means of personal artistic expression. The revised fourth edition includes updates on technical advances as well as a new chapter on contemporary photographers. Armed with the expressive vigor of its images, this thorough and accessible volume will appeal to all.

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1. (Tie) Magnum Contact Sheets by Kristen Lubben

Lists It Appears On:

• Gear Patrol
• Reframe
• Tim Ashley Photography

Available for the first time in a compact edition, this groundbreaking book presents a remarkable selection of contact sheets and ancillary material, revealing for the first time how the most celebrated Magnum photographers capture and edit the very best shots. Addressing key questions of photographic practice, the book illuminates the creative methods, strategies, and editing processes behind some of the world’s most iconic images.

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1. (Tie) On Photography by Susan Sontag

Lists It Appears On:

• Moorpark College Photography
• Popular Photography
• Tim Ashley Photography

One of the most highly regarded books of its kind, On Photography first appeared in 1977 and is described by its author as “a progress of essays about the meaning and career of photographs.” It begins with the famous “In Plato’s Cave”essay, then offers five other prose meditations on this topic, and concludes with a fascinating and far-reaching “Brief Anthology of Quotations.”

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1. (Tie) The History of Photography by Beaumont Newhall

Lists It Appears On:

• Open Learn
• Photonlab
• Popular Photography

Since its first publication in 1937, this lucid and scholarly chronicle of the history of photography has been hailed as the classic work on the subject. No other book and no other author have managed to relate the aesthetic evolution of the art of photography to its technical innovations with such an absorbing combination of clarity, scholarship and enthusiasm. Through more than 300 works by such master photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy O’Sullivan, Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugène Atget, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, Minor White, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, author Beaumont Newhall presents a fascinating, comprehensive study of the significant trends and developments in the medium since the first photographs were made in 1839.

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#13-139
(Appear on 1 list each)

The Best Photography History Book Sources