75+ Inspirational Street Photography Books You Gotta Own

Ground Time by Kent Reno … former charter pilot who took a Leica M4 and other cameras with him on his trips. Anything by Elliott Erwitt. Thanks for mentioning the “Personal Best” iPad app. It’s a real bargain compared to the $133 list price for Personal Best when it first came out. Plus, there’s audio too.

My recent discovery is Willy Ronis (Taschen). And I like Bruce Davison’s Central Park as well.

Two of my favorite books on Street Photography:

Thomas Leuthard: Going Candid
Thomas Lethard: Collecting Souls

Another one to add on would be:

Chris Weeks: Street Photography For The Purist

Not all of these should be considered street photography book. Especially not Anders Petersen’s Cafe Lehmitz. However, it’s a great book and you should indeed have it. Other books worth checking out are Jens Olof Lastheins book Moments in Between and White Sea Black Sea (really rare now a days). And also Klavdij Sluban’s East to East is a great book.

I’m spending my tax refund check on some of these. My local library had HCB’s “Photographer” but dozens of pages of it have been cut out. I don’t own any real photobooks like these, so I like the suggestions (as well as the ones commenters have made). I think I could get addicted to these though.

Hi Eric,

this is a great list. I’ll add some local color to this and add some titles published by German publishers:

Elliott Erwitt’s New York, teNeues, ISBN: 978-3-8327-9587-0
Magnum’s First, HatjeCantz, ISBN: 978-3-7757-2215-5
Henri Cartier-Bresson – à propos de Paris, Schirmer/Mosel, ISBN: 9-783888-142956
Saul Leiter, Deichtorhallen Retrospective Exhibition Catalog, Kehrer, ISBN: 978-3-86828-258-0
Saul Leiter – Early Color, Steidl, ISBN: 978-3-86521-139-2
Saul Leiter – Photofile, Thames & Hudson, ISBN: 978-0-500-41097-4

In particular the Saul Leiter material is missing from Eric’s list – not really understandable. It’s quite different from the Bruce Gilden approach and more “artsy”, but Leiter is a far more powerful artist in my eyes than Gilden will ever be with his limited approach of shooting people in the faces. Personal bias intended in the last statement.

Seriously, apart from my personal preference, Leiter shouldn’t be omitted from any street photography list. Currently, Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen are exhibiting Leiter’s work and they have published an excellent bilingual catalog with all exhibited pieces, including Leiter’s paintings. The price of the catalog will go up once the exhibition is over. Get it now while it’s still available (at a lower price). If you can only get one single book from the list I added, make sure you get that one. It’s excellent.

Kind of the same goes for “Early Color”. That book is an absolute Must-Have title. I thought it was out of print and sold out but I saw it in a local bookstore in Hamburg, so you might be able to still get it.

The Photofile series by Thames & Hudson is a very neat way to build a photographic literature portfolio without spending big money. The series has titles about many renowned artists, including Cartier-Bresson, Capa, Haas, Erwitt and many others.

RAY METZKER?!! ‘Light lines’ is fantastic…

‘Robert Capa, Photographs’ is one of my favourite books.

Matt Weber – Urban Prisoner
http://www.amazon.com/The-Urban-Prisoner-Photographs-Weber/dp/0975333402

David Bradford – Drive By Shootings
http://www.amazon.com/The-Urban-Prisoner-Photographs-Weber/dp/0975333402

Daido Moriyama – Shinjuku
http://www.amazon.com/The-Urban-Prisoner-Photographs-Weber/dp/0975333402

Daido Moriyama – 71-NY
http://www.amazon.com/71-NY-Daido-Moriyama/dp/0967077494/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343354889&sr=1-1&keywords=daido+moriyama+ny+71

Araki – Subway Love
http://www.amazon.com/Subway-Love-Japanese-Nobuyoshi-Araki/dp/4896841409/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343354926&sr=1-1&keywords=araki+subway+love

Takuma Nakahira – For a Language To Come

http://www.amazon.com/Language-Come-Takuma-Nakahira/dp/4990123980/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343354969&sr=1-1&keywords=for+a+language+to+come

I was surprised to find the Vivian Mayer Book, soon to be a film, on the iPad store. amazing!