Harry Callahan: Retrospective Hardcover – July 2, 2013

This is a catalog from a museum show and presents the pictures in strict chronology. I am not aware of Callahan publishing books or portfolios in his lifetime (e.g., "The Americans") which might have argued for a non-chronological presentation.The quality of the reproductions is outstanding and the size is just fine - the largest plates measuring 5" x 8".Callahan's is a restrained aesthetic, with no interest in grandeur and sweep - or shock value, for that matter. His color photography, starting in the '40s, is superb and was unknown to me. There is something of a fall-off in the later work, done after he retired from teaching and was traveling. But he continued to produce masterpieces into his seventies.The essays are decent and the scholarly apparatus excellent: in German and English. Unfortunately, the English is printed in something of a lite taupe which makes it hard to read.For a book of this quality recapitulating such an outstanding career, the price is a bargain.November 30th. The recent death of Saul Leiter and the comments on his pioneering work in color caused me to revisit this book and especially the color plates. I've also been struggling with analogue color in my own photography. I realized that I was unfair in my assessment of Callahan's later work, which is better than I remembered. The pictures from Ireland are especially fine. I had thought the Morocco stuff weak, but I was wrong. It's just very different from the rest of his work.

The size of the color images included here are about 85% of those in Callahan's book New Color Photographs 1978-1987 and a side by side comparison shows that these in the Retrospective are not printed as crisply and there is some slight color variation. About 80% of the book is images with the rest devoted primarily to essays, biography, bibliography, and a detailed list of exhibited photographs. I have not yet read the essays. The images are mostly color which is a bit surprising since Callahan shot primarily black and white for the first 40 years of his career. The binding appears to be good. All in all I find this to be a good overview of Callahan's wonderful work.

I was kind of feeling blue about my photographic work. I was kind of giving up taking pictures more or less seriously. Then it happened I ordered this book -don't remember why- and inmediately my lost faith in my photographic work came back again, inmediately, stronger. Needless to say I love this book. You can find many stiles in it. I didnt know Callahan, but it can be very strong or very subtle. He takes you up and down. Like the best photographers he has his own stile. By the way, I have no complains about the book itself (I mean size, quality, etc.). Enjoy it.

You cannot take this book in one night and feel like you learned something. Have to review it and review it and each time you learn something more. You can never finish it.

Guess I was expecting more. It gets old. His work is more pedestrian then ever. Its like someone that has over stayed his welcome.

The photographic work of Harry Callahan is poetry to me. I hope someday to see his work in an exhibition. This book is beautiful.

Perhaps the best of the Callahan retrospectives with illuminating essays. . Very reasonable price. Beautifully printed Glad to add this to my collection.

A beautiful book and a great retrospective of his body of work. A must have for all Callahan fans out there.

One of the most important things for me when buying a book about a photographers work, that's an absolute must, is that it shows their work at its absolute best, and this book does that, the reproductions, especially the colour , are exquisite.Nothing disappoints me more than a book with colour reproduction that's mediocre ( like the Books on Joel Meyerowitz's work). So as this book has got it right and there are plenty of his images and the overall quality including the cover, is top notch: this book gets four stars for that alone. (one commentator was disappointed with the reproduction - in the copy I have it is exceptionally good)The essays and text are fine, but to have been perfect I would have liked two things. 1- that the space taken up with the German version of the text (one side of each page shared with English text ) had been instead more English text going into more detail and depth about his life. What is there is good but it feels like a synopsis, you get to know the man but I feel there could be more interesting anecdotes or stories that illustrate his character; perhaps it is the way the book gets me so interested in Callahan himself that makes me want to know more.One other commentator said (to paraphrase) that he felt Callahan was old hat. That's a bit like saying any of the old masters are old hat. I find his work exhilarating still, also you can see where many of his students got their influence. There are also stylistic echoes from Egglestone, Shore, and others that followedOverall I love this book and am very happy with it, I'm also very pleased to have so much of his colour work here, much of it I'd not seen before, whereas most of his mono work I had seen before. It is certainly the best by a good margin of all of the books on Callahan that I have seen and one of those 'must have' books

I bought this book after visiting the Callaghan exhibition at Tate Modern.It is an excellently product volume with a really good representative selection of this photographer's work.The germ.English text isn't an issue and, I guess, has helped to kept down the cost of the book than if it were solely in one or other of the languages.This is a book to savour and enjoy.

Maybe the print should be better but is large and clear. The book follow a strange line but in the end is appreciable. Very interenting photographer

Great book ultra fast delivery