Davidson, Bruce.
Central Park
, New York: Aperture Books, 1995. This book is the photographer's vision of Central Park in New York. It is filled with peaceful images and an array and diversity of the people who use the park to play or relax or reflect. It also has a great collection of photographs of teenagers in love. Students like to look at this book.
Freedman, Russell.
Kids At Work: Lewis Hine and the crusade against child Labor/Russell Freedman; with photographs by Lewis Hine.
New York: Clarion Books, 1994. This collection of Hine's work is highly readable and informative. It also contains many of Hine's greatest photographs of child labor. It is an excellent resource for both teachers and students.
Orvell, Miles.
American Photography
, Oxford University Press, 2003. Orvell's book is a great resource for teachers. It begins with the earliest of photography, daguerreotypes, and continues through the Depression, Vietnam and the World Trade Center. It explores a variety of photographers and ideas. It includes landscape photography, photojournalism, and the "new" photographers. It explains, in easily understood detail, how to read a photograph. It is an excellent choice for those who need a way to get their students to discuss a photograph.
Parks, Gordon.
Half Past Autumn
, Organized by the Corcoran Gallery, 1997. This collection of work by Gordon Parks should grace every school library. It is a combination of text and photographs by Parks that covers all phases of his work, from fashion photography, Harlem tenement life, portraits of the rich and famous, to the civil rights movement. It is as well written as it is photographed.
Sontag, Susan.
On Photography.
New York, Picador, 1973
.
This is an intellectual book. It is an existential discussion of photography. Sontag does talk about specific photographers but in addition she teaches us about the meaning of photography and how it has changed our world view and the way we interact.
Stubbs, Marcia and Sylvan Barnet, editors.
The Little Brown Reader
. New York, Harper Collins, 1993. This anthology has been my teacher's handbook for years. In it are a variety of essays on topics ranging from the death penalty to animal rights. The edition I have contains the article "Writing about Family Photographs: Two essays
by First-Year Students", which I used in my first lesson plan. It also contains "Thinking about Dorothea Lange's
Migrant Mother,Nipomo, California.