Steve Meltzer

My dog-eared copy of Josef Koudelka’s Gypsies sits in the bookcase next to Cartier-Bresson’s Decisive Moments and Robert Frank’s The Americans. Like those books, it was fundamental to my development as a photographer. From the moment I saw it I was mesmerized by its stunning black-and-white images. Published by Aperture Books in 1975, it contained page after page of Koudelka’s dark and brooding photographs of European gypsies; the Romani or Roma people.

An American Odyssey (Taschen 2014) is a spectacular photo scrapbook voyage across turn-of-the-century America. Gathered from the 19^th and early 20^th century “color” print and picture postcard collection of photographer Marc Walter, with the assistance of documentarian Sabine Arqué, it is a huge 612-page coffee table book that tips the scales at nearly 16 pounds.

Carleton Watkins was perhaps America’s greatest 19^th century landscape photographer yet today he’s largely unknown. His breathtaking landscapes of the Yosemite Valley were instrumental in preserving the valley for future generations and paving the way for both the National Parks system and the environmental movement.

Good photographers are said to have a good “eye” that distinguishes them from other photographers. There’s no better way to understand this than to see how several very good photographers photograph the same subject. A case in point is a new exhibition of photographs of Marilyn Monroe titled “Inoubliable Marilyn” (“Unforgettable Marilyn”) at Paris’s La Galerie de l’Instant (December 12, 2014-February 25, 2015).