The Bookshelf - #3 - Forty Farms

Forty Farms

Amy Bateman

Jake Island Ltd

Available on Amazon from £27.05

I think that Forty Farms by Amy Bateman is one of those books that, if you’re a landscape photographer in the Lake District, then it is criminal not own a copy! This is an amazing book, written by Amy Bateman who is both a prominent photographer and also a farmer, so there are few (if any!) more qualified to write this book.

In Forty Farms, Bateman looks at the changing face of farming in Cumbria across 40 different farms over the course of 12 months between 2021 and 2022. She interviews the farmers and tells us about the details of these conversations, which she describes as “…frank, sometimes funny, occasionally painful but always fascinating”, she also talks about the narrowing the gap between the farmer and the consumer, and this something that this book does incredibly well.

The interviews, for me, are fascinating and give a great insight into the farms that I see all of the time whilst doing landscape photography in the Lake District, but also explores the wider county of Cumbria (remember it’s the 3rd largest county in England, lots of people forget about the bits that aren’t Lake District) and talks to farmers from a variety of backgrounds, running a variety of farms.

Ok so the images. These are great. Really great. And they tell some awesome stories, each set of photos for each farm has a narrative that goes with them. They tell the stories of the people, the landscape and the incredible work they do as farmers. Oh and there are plenty of photos of animals - it’s a book about farming in Cumbria, so this is a bit of a given.

This book includes a bit of everything, there’s wildlife, portraits, drone photos and some shots that could almost be considered lifestyle/travel with a sprinkling of everything else.

A lot of the photo books that I have are informative, but this is informative in a different way. There are some objectives set out at the front of the book, which Bateman absolutely meets throughout the 336 beautiful pages of this book.

If you’re looking for a photo book you can read as well as just look at, then this is for you.

You can get a copy in just about every bookshop (and lots of others) in Cumbria and they often have it in Booths as well! If you can’t get to one of these places then it’s also available nationally and of course, on Amazon.

The Bookshelf - #2 - This Pleasant Land

Hoxton Mini-Press (Written by Rosalind Jana)

This Pleasant Land - New Photography of The British Landscape

Available on Amazon from £22.14

Welcome back to episode of my short blogs about some of my favourite photobooks. This week we are looking at This Pleasant Land (Hoxton Mini Press), which takes a fresh look at British landscape photography.

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links, if you make a qualifying purchase after clicking one of these links, I may receive a small kick back. This is at no extra cost to you, but does help me to keep this blog running, so thank you if you decide to make a purchase.

One of the first things you notice about this book is the way it looks, the sage green cover makes you feel calm when you see it and the front cover image (shot by Toby Coulson) gives a really good idea of what is contained within the pages of this rather weighty, beautifully produced and bound collection of photographs.

I should have probably said collections, plural, rather than collection, because this book contains sets of images which are projects that have been gathered together from 24 photographers to make this book, which puts a new, often irreverent perspective on landscape photography of the British Isles. The images have been gathered over the course of 20 (ish) year period, so This Pleasant Land, published in 2023, provides a great look at post millennial Britain.

All of the photos are presented on what I would call a semi gloss-type paper and it really suits the look and feel of the images that are contained within.

The book opens with a beautifully written introduction/short essay from Jana, who sets out what she has hoped to achieve with the book and gives the whole project and the concept of landscape photography some real clarity, right from the outset. In it she talks about “an initial moment of open air absorption”, which is something we are familiar with as landscape photographers and that feeling is emanating from these pages.

The other promise that this book delivers on is that photographers have been able to “present their time bound view of this nation’s terrain. From its meadows and mountains, to scrap heaps and amusement arcades, its winding, mineral rich rivers and woods to the far-fetching fens… the bleak, the uncontainable and the marginal”. The book does that well, even on first glance but when you get to spend some time with it, you will see that it really does it.

This book avoids of the usual tropes/cliches that we tend to find in so many landscape photography books, this is particularly evident when you look at the section of the book presented by Sarah Pickering entitled “Explosions” in which she photographs pyrotechnic simulations and how these kinds of things can blur the line between entertainment and violence. It takes on even more meaning when you read the words that accompany it. I won’t quote them here, I will leave them for you to discover.

One of my personal highlights is Man on the Shore by Jem Southam. There’s something about it that feels reminiscent of Another Place on Crosby Beach—though this figure stands alone, which gives it a very different emotional weight.

For me, this doesn’t feel like a traditional landscape photography book at all. It feels much closer to a curated collection of fine art photography—diverse, contemporary, and quietly challenging.

This is absolutely one for the coffee table of any landscape photographer, and it would make a great gift as well.

Prices correct as of 3.30pm 01/04/2026

Check out some more of my Bookshelf entries by clicking the links below.

The Bookshelf - #1 Liam Wong TO:KY:OO

Liam Wong

TO:KY:OO

Thames and Hudson

Available on Amazon - £27.45 (30/03/2026)

Welcome to the first instalment of a series of entries into this blog where I talk about my favourite photo books. This isn’t focussed on a particular style of photography; it’s a selection of the books that I own that really enjoy looking at. These aren’t intended to be reviews, but if I have taken the time to write about it here, then you should assume that I think it’s really good!

These aren’t going to be long, detailed entries, but just enough to whet your appetite and maybe think about going and grabbing yourself a copy for your collection.

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links. If you click any of the Amazon links in this blog and then make a qualifying purchase, I may receive a small kickback at no extra cost to you, This is a great way to support the blog and allows me to keep writing entries like this, as well as the gear reviews that you see here.

Liam Wong’s TO:KY:OO is one of the most striking contemporary street photography books, capturing Tokyo’s neon-lit streets in a cinematic, cyberpunk style.

So, Liam Wong: TO:KY:OO. This might seem like an odd choice for some who does landscape photography in the Lake District. I think a bit part of my love for this book stems from my time spent shooting in London, as well as my desire to visit Tokyo in the future so that I can shoot some photos in this style - the locations in this book are incredible!

But who is Liam Wong? He was born in Edinburgh and studied Computer Art at University. He worked in the games industry for a time, with companies such as Ubisoft. During a trip to Japan with a Canon 5DMK2 he started making photos of the rain soaked Tokyo streets and the photographs he captured during that time formed the basis of what would become his breakthrough project, Tokyo Nights.

The images gained significant attention online for their distinctive look. Wong’s photographs often feature bold neon colours such as pink, purple, blue, and red, which contrast against the darker tones of the city at night. Rain-soaked pavements and reflective surfaces play an important role in the compositions, amplifying the glow of the surrounding lights and adding depth and atmosphere to each scene. Many of his images also include solitary figures walking through the frame, reinforcing a sense of quiet isolation within the busy urban environment.

It’s been said, since time immemorial that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I mean, come on.. look at this thing at the top of the page. The colours, the composition, the reflections… You just know that this book is going to be IN-SANE.

Why This Book Stands Out

Other than the colour, the first thing that you notice is that this is a really well produced book, the cover feels great and the paper stock that has been chosen really shows every single image off at its absolute best. It’s a glossy paper stock, because matte just wouldn’t have worked for them. It does however work in the final section where we are shown some of the colour palettes and edits that went into making this book.

This was one of the first photo books that I bought, and I was at the front of the queue when the second one, After Dark, came out 3 or 4 years later, because I had enjoyed this one so much.

The book takes all around this incredible city at night, and has some real CyberPunk and Bladerunner vibes - Wong even says in the foreword that when he first visited and it rained, it was like being in the world created by Ridley Scott in Blade Runner.

This book tells the story of the place and some of the people that live in it, it is full of vibrance and contrast. The colours pop and the shadows create more mood than you could try and explain. There are photos showing entire streets, some that showcase the neon lights and there are some great detail shots and portraits in amongst it.

This book was a huge influence on my work when I lived in London, and if I do any street photography now I live in the Lake District, these are the kinds of colour I am looking for, though admittedly, they are fewer and farther between.

For such an impressive book, I feel like this is a real bargain of a book, and you can grab your copy on Amazon for less than £30. If you’re into cinematic street photography, neon colour, or simply want a book that looks incredible on your shelf, this is absolutely worth adding to your collection. You can check it out on Amazon below.

Liam Wong : TO:KY:OO

View on Amazon

Check out more blog posts like this below

Why Photo Books Are Important

I love photo books, I have an ever growing collection of them and have just asked from some more as birthday gifts. I think that they are a great thing to own, make fantastic points, I love to receive them as gifts and they serve as a great way to find inspiration, locations and ideas.

This blog is also a bit of a precursor to a series that I am going to start to add to the page where I take a look at some of my favourites, whilst explaining what they deserve a space on my bookshelf and maybe suggesting why they deserve a place on yours.

If you’re someone who doesn’t own any photo books yet, then my blog “10 Photo Books You Should Own” is a great place to start to look for inspiration.

Over the last 15 years, since the launch of Instagram, the way that we view and consume photography has changed in a huge way, much like the Instagram platform itself. Social media presents images to us in such a way, that we look at it for a couple of seconds, decide whether we like it or not, we might double tap it and then we swipe away. A lot of the time, unless it’s something that goes viral, we won’t see it again. These are fleeting moments with images, we’re making a quick decision about them and then we rarely see them again. Everything is rushed.

Imagine doing this in gallery. You’d soon be out of breath and you wouldn’t really appreciate anything that you saw in any sort of meaningful way.

Photobooks, for me at least, are the antitheses to the way we consume images on social media. They force us to slow down when we’re looking through them, we’ve paid for them and we should enjoy them. But please don’t just buy them to allow them to sit on the shelf, make time for them and spend time with them!

It’s useful to think of the different ways we view photography in another way. Imagine that posing your images online is like making a boiled egg, having an image in a gallery exhibition is like making a roast dinner without having to look at the instructions and a photobook is like making a Michelin star level Soufflé and being able to do it consistently. All three of these involve work with ingredients (your photos) but each one is a step up, until you reach the pinnacle.

They also all have different barriers to entry/success. Anyone can pick up their phone and post on social media - you have control over this, it’s your account and you can post whatever you want on it. A gallery exhibition means that someone/some people have to like your work enough and think that it is credible enough to be on a wall somewhere that people want to come and see it.

A photo book on the other hand requires not only a publisher to take a chance on you, it’s going to involve multiple people making decisions along the way and it also needs you to have a large, credible body of work that people will be willing to part with money to look at. It’s the highest barrier to entry and when you buy one, you can usually rest assured that what we’re getting is really the cream of the crop - it’s going to be something that we want to spend time with to enjoy and digest, to relax and maybe, just maybe, be inspired by.

Unfortunately, buying photo books isn’t always cheap, especially if you want a good, well produced one, but for me, that is always offset by the fact that I have something tangible, which is mine, feels good in the hands and looks great on my bookcase, or in some cases on the coffee table.

For many photographers, a dream is to have their own photo book, some are in the fortunate position that they are able to design, develop and publish their own, but this comes with a further barrier to entry in terms of the financial risk involved. If you can’t sell them, they’re yours, but you can only look at one copy of it at time. If this is something that you intend to do at some point, do your research and make sure that you know exactly what the risks involved are.

Photobooks are one of the most powerful ways to experience photography, whether you’re looking for inspiration, ideas, or simply a deeper connection with the images you see

But Why are Photo Books Important?

For me, this is about several things, which include, but are not limited to quality, intention, permanence and control.

There is not doubt that social media is an easy, quick and largely free way to enjoy photography that is being shared by other people, no matter how good we think the stuff that we see is - we’ve not paid for it, so we don’t mind skipping a few dozen images before find something that we like and that we want to engage with. If you sat with a photo book for 20 minutes and only found one image that you liked in the whole thing, you wouldn’t be very happy, right?

Granted, you’re unlikely to spend money on a photo book by a photographer whose style or subject matter you don’t enjoy — but sometimes you take a chance, and it doesn’t pay off.

The good thing about most photobooks is that they’re created by credible, well-known photographers. We’re buying into their work and their style, so more often than not, we know what we’re getting.

I’m going to talk about quality and intention together, because they’re intrinsically linked. When you get your hands on a well-produced photobook, one of the first things you notice is that the images are presented exactly as the photographer intended. This extends right down to the paper the images are printed on. Some books even use multiple paper types within the same volume, ensuring each image is shown at its best.

A great example of this — even though it’s technically a magazine — is the British Journal of Photography’s quarterly publication. The first thing I noticed when I opened my first copy was the variation in paper stock, and how much that influences the way the images are presented.

TO:KY:OO by Liam Wong is another excellent example of intentional design. I know I mention this book a lot, but it illustrates the point perfectly. The book is filled with vibrant, low-light images of Tokyo and is printed on smooth, glossy paper, which allows the colours to really pop and gives the images a striking presence. These same images wouldn’t have the same impact on the matte paper used towards the back of the book, where colour palettes and contact sheets are presented. They’re still strong images — but the presentation changes how we experience them.

Then there’s layout and sequencing. The order of images helps to tell a story, and the layout supports that narrative. On social media, we’re constrained by the platform. On our websites, we’re limited by design structures. But in a book, there’s far more freedom. We can use full-bleed spreads, pair images across pages, or group multiple images together. We can add text exactly where we want it — not where a platform dictates.

Finally, control. While this overlaps with quality and intention, it goes a step further. Control is about the finer details — particularly colour. When we share images online, we have very little control over how they’re viewed. Screens vary in brightness, colour temperature, and calibration. There are countless variables.

With a printed photobook, however, and with the right workflow, we can calibrate images to the printer and fine-tune every detail so that the final result matches our vision as closely as possible.

In TO:KY:OO, Wong takes this even further with fold-out pages that extend across four panels, allowing for stunning panoramic images to be presented in a way that simply isn’t possible on social media — and rarely practical on a website. It adds both impact and a sense of occasion to the viewing experience.

And then there’s permanence.

There’s something inherently fleeting about social media. Once we scroll past an image, we rarely see it again. Even viral content has a short lifespan. Platforms now prioritise video, and even when still images are promoted, they tend to favour unpolished, behind-the-scenes content over carefully crafted work.

Photobooks sit at the opposite end of that spectrum. They bring together considered, intentional, often highly polished work in one place. They live on our shelves, within reach, ready to be revisited whenever we want — whether for inspiration, study, or simply the enjoyment of engaging with photography at a slower pace.

They’ll be here long after we’re not.

Conclusion

Photobooks ask more of us as viewers. They ask us to slow down, to look properly, and to engage with images in a way that social media rarely allows. But in return, they give us something far more meaningful — a deeper connection to the work, a clearer sense of the photographer’s intent, and a lasting source of inspiration that we can return to time and time again. That’s why photo books are important.

If you’d like to support the blog and help me keep producing Lake District photography content, honest gear reviews and regular website updates, you can do so via my Buy Me a Coffee page. Keeping everything running smoothly takes time, and your support makes a real difference. Thank you.

10 Photo Books YOU should own.

Welcome back! In this fairly quick entry, I am going to list and give a brief outline of 10 photobooks that I own and that I think you should too. This is going to cover everything from landscape photography to street photography and the craft of photography in general.

This blog contains Amazon affiliate links and I may received a small kickback if you make a qualifying purchase after clicking one of the links in this blog.

I own all of these books, with the exception of one of them; the last one on the list (which I am hoping to receive for Christmas, or bag a copy in the Black Friday sales.

I think what surprised me about the list when I wrote it was that I haven’t chosen a lot of landscape photography books. In fact, there are only 3 ‘real’ landscape books. I like to have a variety of photography to look at. I don’t want everything I consume to be the stuff that I am shooting, I don’t want to be sat looking at what I could be taking - I want to be out there taking it and on top of that I don’t want my creativity to be limited by thinking about how I can recreate images that I have seen.

I think that the last point applies even more so to social media, but that’s a whole other blog I am going to write need to unpick that!

Anyway, here goes with the list. I will include a link to each one of them on Amazon so that if the mood strikes, you can go ahead and grab a copy for yourself or maybe to give as a gift to a very lucky photographer.

1. Susan Sontag - On Photography

   I think that this is a really important book and one that every photographer should read. In this book, Sontag discusses many ideas, but chief among them (for me anyway) is that photography makes us spectators of life, rather than people who participate in it. I think this rings ever more true the more prevalent social media comes in our lives.

   She also looks at several other themes such as photography becoming a form of control, explores how it can distort our perception of reality (social media again, anyone?) and how we can becomes desensitised to things such as the atrocity of war because of how much we see it in the course of our daily lives.

   If you haven’t read this then you probably should, it’s also really reasonably priced at less than £10 on Amazon.

2. Liam Wong :TO:KY:00

   This isn’t just one of my favourite photo books, this one, and it’s sequel After Dark are two of my favourite books that I own. They might even be two of my favourite possessions full stop. The images in these books are just incredible and Wong’s training as a video games artist really shows. The images are crisp, the compositions are simply incredible and the colours… just WOW.. serious cyberpunk vibes! There’s a lot of neon lights going, the photos are dark, moody and tell some incredible stories.

   The other thing worth mentioning about these books is that they are so incredibly well produced. They have lay flat binding so that you’re not going to get them all creased up and ruin the spines and there are fold-out panoramic shots as well so you can really enjoy the images the way in which they were intended to be seen.

3. Ansell Adams 400 Photographs

   Would this list be complete without some kind of mention of the Godfather of landscape photographer, Ansell Adams? If you want to enjoy as much of the great man’s photography as possible, and in one palace, then this is the place to do it. The images are organised into groups, starting with some of his earliest stuff in Yosemite around 1916 up until some of the work he did around the National Parks in the 1960s.

   If you’re into landscape photography, or just like the natural world then this is something you need on your bookshelf. You can pick this one up for around £30 here on Amazon

4. The Photographer’s Eye - Michael Freeman

   If you are looking for a way to improve your landscape photography, then this is a good place to start. This is well organised book which guides you through a process which ultimately will change the way you view the world. What I like about this is the clear language it uses and moreover, the way the book uses such a wide range of example images from all around the world so that it doesn’t fill your head with images that are a stones throw from your front door that you can just head out and copy. I really like that.

   This book has recently been updated and you can grab a copy of the latest edition for about £18 on Amazon by clicking here.

5. This Pleasant Land - Hoxton Mini Press

   This is one I have had a couple of years and frequently dip into. It shows a modern perspective on the UK landscape as it exits today, and it isn't just classically ‘beautiful’ photographs. It looks at the beauty that can be found in decay as well as exploring the more traditionally aesthetically pleasing side that we associate with landscape photography. Is it predictable? No. Is it traditional? No. Do you need a copy? Yes. Yes you do. It’s available on Amazon for just shy of £22

6. Magnum Contact Sheets - Kristen Lubben

   Another one which isn’t a landscape book, but I don’t know a single photographer who hasn’t been fascinated by this book. It’s a collection of contact sheets and stories as told by the incredible photojournalists that have worked for the Magnum Agency. We’re talking big names in this book… Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve Arnold, Elliot Erwitt and Bruce Gilden to name just a few.

   I find the stories behind the images fascinating and perhaps at times, the reasons behind the selects even more so. It’s just an incredible book and even you’re not into photojournalistic work, you can learn a heck of a lot about storytelling and composition by spending a couple of hours with this book. It’s one of the heavier books on the list both in terms of physical weight and price coming in at around £45 on Amazon

7. Ernst Haas - New York in Colour - Prestel

   Haas moved to New York from Vienna in 1951 and qucickly set about photographing it. What he captured was just incredible and marks his move away from his career shooting in black and white. All of the images have the classic New York vibe that we have come to expect from the city that never sleeps. The images explore the technical challenges he encountered shooting with Kodachrome and then printing the images in colour. I can’t tell you exactly what it is about this book that makes it so good, it’s just an incredible set of images that you need to see. This one is currently selling for £35 on Amazon

8. William Eggleston - Portraits

   Do you like shooting in colour? Do you like looking at colour images in galleries and at exhibitions? You do? Well then you have William Eggleston to thank for that. At a time when colour photography was for amateurs and the establishment’s attitude was that in order to be considered a true professional and a ‘serious’ artist then you had to shoot in black and white. There was a lot of snobbery about the use of colour and Eggleston broke down that barrier. The potraits in this book show colour photography at its very best, the compositions are often hectic, playful and the way people are portrayed in them feels really authentic. There is a whole bunch of books by Eggleston that could have made this list (The Democratic Forest and 2 1/4 are fantastic, but unless you have very deep pockets, you might struggle to justify the £6100 that a copy of the former is currently listed for on Amazon). Portraits has a much more wallet friendly price, coming in at around £35 on Amazon.

9. Life on The Mountains - Terry Abraham

   You didn’t think I was going to complete this blog without talking about The Lake District, did you? This gorgeous book which talks about a ten year project Abraham worked on, documenting the fells of Lakeland, encountering some pretty sketchy weather and taking some nasty falls along the way. The photography in this book is nothing short of stunning, helped of course by the quality of the environment he was shooting! It’s a book that really does speak for itself and is as equally at home in the hands of a photographer as it is with an outdoor enthusiast and love of The Lake District; I reckon Wainwright would have loved it! You can grab your copy on Amazon for just under £20!

10. The Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson

    Ok, so full disclosure, I don’t own a copy of this book, but I have had the chance to peruse one in a library when I still lived in London. If you had asked me to write this list 6 months ago, this book would’t have featured; it was out of print, hard to get hold of and if you wanted a useable copy, you were looking at deep into three figures territory. So why is it on here now? There has been a new print run and it’s available to buy again!

    This is one of, if not the most famous photobooks in existence. It looks at the concept of the decisive moment in photography. The exact meaning of ‘the decisive moment’ is a bit of a bone of contention amongst photographers, but it boils down to waiting for the right moment to capture the image, but its a bit deeper than that at the same time. This really is a genre defining book and is definitely something you should own!

    The reprint is currently going for £40 on Amazon.

    And here endeth the list.
    
    This just my opinion based on what I own and what I have read. I don’t profess to be the oracle of photographic literature, but I reckon a number of these would pop-up in conversations about books with fellow photographers. I love owning photo books, they bring me a lot of joy and have pride of place in my house, they’re a great talking point and who knows, maybe one day, I will have one of my own!

    Prices are correct as of 11pm, Wednesday 19th November, please bear in mind that I am writing this as I waiting for the Amazon Black Friday to start at midnight (I really do love a bargain!), but that means that Amazon have an absolute raft of deals going on in the run up to the start of their event so please don’t be mad if the prices have gone up by the time you get round to reading this!

    Thanks for making it this far! If you’d like to support the blog and help me keep producing Lake District photography content, honest gear reviews and regular website updates, you can do so via my Buy Me a Coffee page. Keeping everything running smoothly takes time, and your support makes a real difference. Thank you.