The Monograph by Édouard Boubat
The Monograph
- Typical online price: $50
- Photographer: Édouard Boubat
- Cover: 12×12 hardcover with dust jacket
- Content: 368 pages (250+ photographs, mostly 10×7)
- Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 2004
Paris, 1948
The amount of wear on my copy tells you this is one of my favorite books. I’m a photojournalist who wishes he could shoot in black and white and tell human stories all the time. Édouard Boubat was a master who honed his craft the hard way – by showing up every day and shooting regularly from the late 1940s right up until his death in 1999. The breadth of his portfolio is impressive.
The Monograph is a chronological collection of Édouard Boubat’s finest work, jointly compiled by his son Bernard Boubat and photographer Geneviève Anhoury. Boubat traveled on assignment routinely and the photographs reflect his nomadic spirit, carrying us through Europe and the Middle East, into parts of Africa, and periodically to the United States. His frames use composition, light, and a bit of humor to capture street scenes as often as rural vignettes.
Self-portrait with grandson Remi, 1996
Paris, 1953
We photographers often cannot resist expressing ourselves by bugging our most available subjects – friends and relatives – with endless impromptu lifestyle portraits. Boubat was no different. He made many intimate frames of his wife and child which add to the book’s deepest effect, creating a rich portrait of an artist.
Boubat was a family man who wrote scores of notes and letters, snippets of which are sprinkled across the pages. His words reveal his poetic nature, his curiosity about the human spirit, and his humility as a constant foreigner entering people’s lives. He loved to see the world through his camera.
Nazaré, Portugal, 1958
Mississippi, 1953
The text also show his moments of wavering confidence in his skills, which may explain his relentless shooting habit. Boubat lived and worked in Paris alongside his older peers Robert Doisneau and Henri Cartier-Bresson. He is the least known of the three but his body of work nonetheless contains some iconic gems. It teaches us that hard work can make up for the private concern of many artists – that of ordinary talent.
Ghana, 1960
WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER VALUE
I find photojournalism useful to study because it usually focuses on ordinary people expressing ordinary emotions. The more photojournalism I view, the better my sense of intuition becomes in anticipating and aligning a picture. Plus photojournalism encourages me to embrace the moments that occur in between major events. These moments can be just as revealing on a human level and create great value for my clients.
This book is one of my favorites because the nuances of Boubat’s work reveal themselves over repeated viewings. I get something new each time I pick it up. It helps that I never get tired of the beautiful tonality of black and white film, which is all he used. Virtually every image was shot with a 35mm Leica rangefinder or a 6×6 medium format Rolleiflex TLR.
A Pretend Wedding in Paris, 1952
Paris, 1960
IT’S A GOOD BUY IF…
You enjoy the photographic combination of classic 1950s street scenes, documentary travel, Paris, and intimate portraits of ordinary people. The Monograph is the definitive collection of Boubat’s work so it’s a natural point of entry.
Tell me… how does straight photojournalism influence your wedding work?
