The Strand bookstore boasts one of the largest collections of art books in the world. When I’m in the neighborhood and have some free time, one of my favorite things to do is browse the photography books on the second floor. Coffee-table-sized books are arranged on large tables for customers’ viewing pleasure.
While flipping through one Taschen book, I decided that nothing compares to looking at a book filled with beautiful pictures. However, I would never buy one of these books – they are generally very expensive, and I wouldn’t really revisit the book after I looked through it once. What’s the point?
(Pictured at left: Book browsing, by specialkrb)
Some of my favorite blogs (especially blogs that run on Tumblr) are simply collections of photographs that are updated often enough to seem to provide me with endless amount of viewing pleasure. This is why you’re fat., syntheticpubes, and lastnightsparty are a few of my favorite photo-based blogs.
I just wonder how many other customers in the Strand were thinking the same thing that I was thinking and how much longer publishers will continue to publish books with beautiful photographs. Sure, they are nice to look at when I feel like a photo-book fix, but I have no desire to buy them. Does anyone buy them?