The Life of a Photograph

Drawing on 40 years of fieldwork, The Life of a Photograph takes readers on assignment and inside the heart of a master photographer to witness the process of making a truly great picture. This exquisite book is organized by the known and unexpected themes of Abell’s work, ranging from his sensitive Portraits, beautiful Land, Sea, Sky and thought-provoking Wild Life to the surprising Just Looking (quirky scenes encountered on assignment),On the Road (photographs taken from automobiles), and The Built World (human impacts on pristine land). Anecdotes, explanations, and intriguing glimpses behind the scenes reveal the evolution—picture by picture and thought by thought—of some of the world’s most interesting and recognized images and many never-before seen photographs as well. Selections cover geography and wildlife from the Arctic to the Amazon, and cultures from Australia to Japan to the American West. A beautiful gift for everyone who loves fine photography, this volume is not to be thumbed through once—it is a treasure that will be savored over and over again.

• Seeing Gardens (New Millennium)
• Stay This Moment: The Photographs of Sam Abell
• Magnum Contact Sheets
• Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb on Street Photography and the Poetic Image: The Photography Workshop Series
• Sam Abell: The Photographic Life
• Alex Webb: The Suffering of Light
• Fred Herzog: Modern Color
• Bystander: A History of Street Photography
• Walker Evans: American Photographs: Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Edition