B&h Photography Podcast

This is one of the most enjoyable chats on photography we’ve had in­ a while, and our subject is the history of amateur and popular photography as understood through photography how-to books and manuals. Joining us on the B&H Photography Podcast is Dr. Kim Beil, professor at Stanford University and author of Good Pictures: The History of Popular Photography, and with Beil we not only speak about what is and has been considered a “good photo,” we specifically talk about her collection of photography how-to books and camera manuals, which act as a guide to this “good photography” over the years. A sense of the collection can be found on her Instagram page, and we discuss examples from various decades, as well as those aimed at certain disciplines and those written by popular instructors and well-known photographers, such as Ansel Adams and Gordon Parks. We also talk with Beil about certain trends in popular photography, including ideas as simple as cropping and the many techniques born of technical and arti