Street photography recommended reading

An essential essay for all those on a photographic journey, Susan Sontag's groundbreaking critique of photography asks forceful questions about the moral and aesthetic issues surrounding this art form.

This collection reveals the secrets of Leiter’s appeal, from his life philosophy and lyricism to masterful colours and compositions. Some 200 works cover Leiter’s career from the ‘40s onwards, with quotations from Leiyter which express his singular world view.

With over 230 gorgeous images from the Canadian photographer who worked almost exclusively with Kodachrome slide film for over 50 years. Only in the past decade has technology allowed him to make archival pigment prints that match the exceptional color and intensity of the Kodachrome slide. Truly wonderful street photography.

I love this little book. You’ll take an inspiring photo-walk with legendary photographer Daido Moriyama while he explains his groundbreaking approach to street photography, providing a distinct vision of Japan and its people. Learn about his methods, the cameras he uses, and the journeys he takes with a camera.

This book should be on everyone’s shelf and is absolutely essential reading. Frank changed the course of twentieth-century photography. In eighty-three photographs, he looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians, and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding culture of consumption.

DeThis is another ‘must have’. Since the 1970s, Webb has consistently created photographs characterized by intense colour and light. His work, with its richly layered and complex composition, touches on multiple genres, including street photography, photojournalism and fine art.

I keep returning to this book and find it hard to put down. It features the photographs and practices that have helped define what street photography is and can be. Masters such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who pioneered ‘modern’ concepts of street photography before the term was even coined, features strongly - along with prolific street shooters such as Erwitt, Parr, Gilden and Kalvar

For Haas, the new medium of colour photography was the only way to capture a city pulsing with energy and humanity. These images demonstrate Haas's tremendous virtuosity and confidence with Kodachrome film and the technical challenges of colour printing. Unparalleled in their depth and richness of colour, brimming with lyricism and dramatic tension, these images reveal a photographer at the height of his career.

From understanding how to be invisible to anticipating a great image in the chaos of a crowd, Matt reveals in over 20 chapters the skills and secrets that have led to his greatest shots. He explains his uniquely playful approach to street photography, providing ideas to use in your own photography. Illustrated with 100 of Matt's images, this is a unique opportunity to learn from one of the finest street photographers around.

When digging through his personal archives recently, Gilden unearthed hundreds of unseen contact prints and negatives taken by him in New York between 1978 and 1984. Brimming with youthful energy, and all taken without the flash for which he is now famous, Gilden’s photos celebrate all that New York City – at once familiar and exotic – had to offer. It is an exceptional study of a now-vanished era, forming an extraordinary gallery of portraits, the compositions simmer with energy, bursting with the most diverse characters

If you shoot street photography in London, you should read this, a book which delves into the area's storied past as a place of disobedience and eccentricity. Opening with a look at Soho through the years, we’re then led through the work of photographers who have shed light on Soho's many faces through the decades, including Kelvin Brodie, Clancy Gebler Davies, Corinne Day, William Klein, and Anders Petersen.

This amazing book covers all of Meyerowitz's great projects: his work inspired by the artist Morandi, his work on trees, his exclusive coverage of Ground Zero, his trips in the footsteps of Robert Frank across the US, his experiments comparing colour and black and white pictures, and of course his iconic street photography work. The text is all by Joel Meyerowitz himself

This is at the top of my reading list for my seaside documentary workshops. Featuring works by some of Britain’s best-loved photographers – Tony Ray-Jones, David Hurn, Martin Parr, and Simon Roberts – it explores our changing relationship with the seaside over the last six decades and holds up a critical and affectionate mirror to a much-loved and quintessentially British experience.

If you’re into shooting the streets of London after dark, you must read this. The book showcases both contemporary and historic imagery that explores the capital after hours. Well-known photographers (such as Bill Brandt) sit alongside lesser-known artists who explore the dreamy, threatening and shadowy world of the city after the sun goes down. Another beautifully produced gem (as you’d expect) from Hoxton Mini Press.

Gorgrous British documentary photography. Depardon grasps the light of Scotland as never before and sublimes the end of a working world. Glasgow’s cloudy skies and soaked ground give an extraordinary beauty to the wanderings of working people, hanging around in front of the shops, walking towards the factories’ walls and even playing about ruined houses. The pictures will appear without captions, and only a short bilingual text by Depardon will introduce the reportage, behind William Boyd’s foreword.

Do you shoot (or want to shoot) street portraits? In 2010, Stanton set out on an ambitious project: to single-handedly create a photographic census of New York City. He covered thousands of miles on foot, capturing ordinary New Yorkers in the most extraordinary of moments, resulting in this book with 400 colour images. Heartfelt and moving, Humans of New York is a celebration of individuality and a tribute to the spirit of a city.

A terrific and inexpensive little tribute to the Brooklyn-born photographer was an assistant to Walker Evans and a friend of Cartier-Bresson, but forged her own path with fierce independence and endless curiosity about the world around her. She is best known for her street photography, capturing children at play on the streets of Depression-era New York.

Henri Cartier-Bresson's writings on photography and photographers are collected here for the first time. The Mind's Eye features Cartier-Bresson's famous text on "the decisive moment" as well as his observations on Moscow, Cuba and China during turbulent times. These essays ring with the same immediacy and visual intensity that characterize his photography.

The Saul Leiter Foundation has begun an organization of more than 80,000 of his works, with the aim of compiling the ‘complete’ archive. This volume contains works discovered through this process, valuable documents that reveal the secrets of Leiter's creation, unpublished works, popular colour works and black-and-white works that have not yet been published, as well as works that trace the memories of those closest to him taken in private.

Every weekend marauding packs of brides and grooms, close friends and family, overflow its streets on a mission to consume dangerous, liver-crushing levels of alcohol. This is their rite of passage acted out on the last night of freedom. Dougie has captured a town heaving with everything from bunnygirls to banana men. Girls dressed in togas, all matching gold handbags and neatly-done hair, giving it the when in Rome treatment, devil girls, pink ladies, Brownies, guys in drag, stuffed into nuns and nurses outfits, and wearing salacious T-shirts.

Here we have 46 contemporary image-makers noted for their candid depictions of everyday life in our streets, subways, shopping malls, beaches and parks. Think Bruce Gilden, Martin Parr and Alex Webb, along with an international cast of emerging photographers who present the stories behind their pictures of New York, Tokyo, Delhi or Dakar. Four thought-provoking essays and a global conversation between leading street photographers explore the compelling and often controversial issues in the genre. Wonderful.

Unmissable and widely regarded as the ‘bible’ of street photography. It covers an incredible array of talent, including Atget, Stieglitz, Strand, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Kertesz, Frank, Arbus, Winogrand and Levitt to name just a few. The story of street photography is brought up to date with a re-evaluation of some historical material, the inclusion of more contemporary photographers and a discussion of the ongoing rise of digital photography.

Larrain’s photographs of a smoggy, down-at-heel London captured an extraordinarily powerful vision of the city. Larrain's London is a fast-moving blur of activity. He revealed the signs of the emergence of a new, post-war London society – in its streets, parks, pubs and clubs – and captured the class divisions, the burgeoning fashions of its youth, and the everyday life of Londoners about to enter the 60s. The imagesbrought Larrain to the attention of Cartier-Bresson, who immediately signed him to Magnum.

McCullin (b.1935) began to tshoot in the 1950s documenting his local community, including the local gangs. He went onto become one of the best known war correspondents in the country. McCullin is best known as a photojournalist and war correspondent, recognised for his iconic images taken on assignment in Vietnam, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Biafra. However he also has consistently engaged with social documentary practice in Britain, repeatedly visiting cities such as Bradford and Liverpool, and London’s East End, documenting the poverty experienced throughout the country.

The Decisive Moment―originally called Images à la Sauvette― is one of the most famous books in the history of photography, assembling Cartier-Bresson’s best work from his early years. Published in 1952 by Simon and Schuster, New York, in collaboration with Editions Verve, Paris, it was lavishly embellished with a collage cover by Henri Matisse. The book and its images have since influenced generations of photographers.

This contains a series of bite-sized lessons and ideas, telling you everything you always wanted to know about Joel’s approach to taking photographs. From his influences, ideas and experiences, to tech tips and more. You’ll learn how to use a camera to reclaim the streets as your own, why you need to watch the world always with a sense of possibility, how to set your subjects at ease, and the importance of being playful and of finding a lens that suits your personality.

From the 1950s until the 1990s Chicago nanny, Vivian Maier, took over 100,000 photographs worldwide-from France to New York City to Chicago and dozens of other countries - and yet showed the results to no one. The photos are amazing both for the breadth of the work and for the high quality of the humorous, moving, beautiful, and raw images of all facets of city life in America's post-war golden age. Everyone should know about this incredible body of work (and also check out the film: ‘Finding Vivian Maier).

For over seven years, Jim has been photographing the lives of people in his community of Dereham, in Norfolk who, through physical and mental problems and a failing social security system, face isolation and loneliness in their daily lives. His work covers difficult subjects such as disability, addiction and self-harm, but is always with hope and dignity, focusing upon the strength and resilience of the people he photographs. Small Town Inertia is a remarkable body of work and brilliant example of a focused documentary photography project.

A thrilling trove of newly discovered color works from the photographer celebrated for his pioneering painterly vision. This volume contains works discovered through this project - specifically, color photography from slides never before published or seen by the public. It is edited by Margit Erb and Michael Parillo of the Saul Leiter Foundation, and is embellished with texts that describe how Leiter assembled his slide archive and how it is being catalogued and restored.

A journey into that most London of institutions, the Eel, Pie and Mash shop. Today, these simple spaces hold within them the memories of a rich, largely undocumented cultural heritage of generations of working-class Londoners in a city whose only constant is change. Often elaborately decorated with ornate Victorian tiling, many sold live eels in metal trays that faced out onto the street to the fascination (and sometimes horror) of passersby. Inside, warmth and comfort. Steam. Tea. Laughter. Families. A beautiful exercise in documentary photography.