Being someone that loves photography books I was thrilled to see that a very special book was released in October of last year by renowned Irish fashion photographer Barry McCall.

From the Pho2ography press release:

'For the book Barry has shot a large number of celebrity portraits around the world - from Liam Neeson in his family apartment in New York City to Snow Patrol in Red Square, From Colin Farrell on a hotel roof in LA to John Kavanagh on the Abbey theatre stage. In each and every shot he has captured the essence of the subject'

I lived in Dublin in 1998/1999 and worked for Barry on a number of occasions as a second assistant. He is an amazingly energetic and passionate man. But most of all he is an amazing photographer and I always came away from a day shooting with Barry very inspired.

So I am really pleased to see he has released what looks like an awesome book - Pho20graphy.

Some details of the book can be found HERE (which includes some of Barry's images).

An interview with Barry on the books release can be found HERE

Music is the latest book by American photographer Andrew Zuckerman and in a number of ways it is quite special.

First and foremost it is a superbly produced coffee table format, photographic portrayal of a vast array of musicians from around the world. Being someone that loves music I was naturally drawn to the simple yet gripping imagery.

I was interested in there being a selection of New Zealand musicians including Dave Dobbyn, Neil Finn and Bic Runga as well as a vast collection internationally including Mark Knopfler, Ziggy Marley, Kenny Rogers and even Ravi Shankar.

Towards the back of the book there is a thumbnail section showing many of the studio sessions capturing the images.

However the other special quality of this book is the brilliant fusion of technology and the realisation that Music is probably a very good indication of what photography books may be like in the future. In essence Music also has an application for the iPad, while also being an audio-book and a video-book.

Full details on that side of the book can be found HERE

Further information on the book can be found HERE

Mostly for me however this is a beautifully photographed and produced book of many of the great musicians of today.

Definitely ranking high on my ‘dream list’ of photographic assignments would be the opportunity to travel to Antarctica and especially have access to photographic the historic huts left by Shackelton and Scott.

So while this remains on my bucket list for now I was delighted to see the release of a wonderful book by Auckland photographer Jane Ussher – Still Life. This is a beautiful book and weighty in it’s presence at 224 pages of glorious images from the frozen continent.

Still Life is made up wonderful images however it is the ones of the interiors of Scott’s and Shackelton’s huts that I truly find memorizing. If you have the opportunity do check out this book.

There is a delightful slideshow of some of the images HERE as well as details of the book HERE.