The RCBC Library has many course textbooks on reserve. These books can be reserved for two hours at a time.
You can view which textbooks are available by subject on this guide:
Ebooks are accessible directly from the Library catalog. If you're interested in finding ebooks only, head to eBook Collection. To log in, use the barcode located on the back of your student ID and your pin number. You have the option to download ebooks to a device, but we strongly recommend reading them online to take advantage of the full suite of available tools. Create a personal account using your Library barcode and PIN to manage and organize your ebook reading and research.
100 Ideas That Changed Photography by
This compelling book chronicles the most influential ideas that have shaped photography from the invention of the daguerreotype in the early 19th century up to the digital revolution and beyond. Entertaining and intelligent, it provides a fascinating resource to dip into. Arranged in a broadly chronological order to show the development of photography, the ideas that comprise the book include innovative concepts, cultural and social incidents, technologies, and movements. Each idea is presented through lively text and arresting visuals, and explores when the idea first evolved and its subsequent impact on photography.
Please check the catalog or databases, or contact RCBC Library to see if book is currently available. Here are a few suggestions:
Zones of Exclusion by
In the 11 days following the Chernobyl catastrophe on April 26, 1986, more than 116,000 people were permanently evacuated from the area surrounding the nuclear power plant. Declared unfit for human habitation, the Zones of Exclusion includes the towns of Pripyat (established in the 1970s to house workers) and Chernobyl. In May 2001, Robert Polidori photographed what was left behind in the this dead zone. His richly detailed images move from the burned-out control room of Reactor 4, where technicians staged the experiment that caused the disaster, to the unfinished apartment complexes, ransacked schools and abandoned nurseries that remain as evidence of those who once called Pripyat home. Nearby, trucks and tanks used in the cleanup efforts rest in an auto graveyard, some covered in lead shrouds and others robbed of parts. Houseboats and barges rust in the contaminated waters of the Pripyat River. Foliage grows over the sidewalks and hides the modest homes of Chernobyl. In his large-scale photographs, Polidori captures the faded colors and desolate atmosphere of these two towns, producing haunting documents that present the reader with a rare view of not just a disastrous event, but a place and the people who lived there.
American Photography by
A history of modern American photography surveys major developments in photographic theory, trends, method, and style, as well as the works of noted American photographers, from 1945 to the present.
Latinx Photography in the United States by
Whether at UFW picket lines in California?s Central Valley or capturing summertime street life in East Harlem Latinx photographers have documented fights for dignity and justice as well as the daily lives of ordinary people. Their powerful, innovative photographic art touches on family, identity, protest, borders, and other themes, including the experiences of immigration and marginalization common to many of their communities. Yet the work of these artists has largely been excluded from the documented history of photography in the United States. Through individual profiles of more than eighty photographers from the early history of the photographic medium to the present, Elizabeth Ferrer introduces readers to Latinx portraitists, photojournalists, and documentarians and their legacies. She traces the rise of a Latinx consciousness in photography in the 1960s and '70s and the growth of identity-based approaches in the 1980s and '90s. Ferrer argues that in many cases a shared sense of struggle has motivated photographers to work purposefully, driven by a deep sense of resistance, social and political commitments, and cultural affirmation, and she highlights the significance of family photos to their approaches and outlooks. Works range from documentary and street photography to narrative series to conceptual projects. Latinx Photography in the United States is the first book to offer a parallel history of photography, one that no longer lies at the margins but rather plays a crucial role in imagining and creating a broader, more inclusive American visual history.
The Photo Student Handbook by
The Photo Student Handbook is a collection of short, easy-to-read chapters filled with expert advice on enhancing image-making skills and launching a career as a professional photographer. Designed to help students grow beyond the technical aspects of photography, this book presents a variety of methods and strategies proven to strengthen visual awareness, engage creative thinking, and deepen the conceptual aspects of image-making. Topics include how to: - improve the ability to see actively - understand light as a main character - cultivate a creative mind - make a standout portfolio - unpack critical theory - find and develop a creative voice. Packed with valuable tips, insights, and advice from over a hundred instructors, professionals, senior students, and experts, this book is engineered to help instructors guide students step-by-step through the methods and strategies needed to achieve creative success both in the classroom and the real world. This book is ideal for intermediate- and advanced-level photography students and instructors alike. Visit the accompanying website www.photostudent.net for extra chapters, exercises, quizzes, and more.
Citizens of Photography by
Citizens of Photography explores how photography offers access to forms of citizenship beyond those available through ordinary politics. Through contemporary ethnographic investigations of photographic practice in Nicaragua, Nigeria, Greece, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Cambodia, the PhotoDemos Collective traces the resonances between political representation and photographic representation. The authors emphasize photography as lived practice and how photography's performative, transformative, and transgressive possibilities facilitate the articulation of new identities. They analyze photography ranging from family albums and social media to state and public archives, showing how it points to new destinations in the context of social movements, the aftermath of atrocity and civil war, and the legacies of past injustices. By foregrounding photography's open-ended and contingent nature and its ability to subvert and reconfigure conventional political identifications, this volume demonstrates that as much as photography looks to the past, it points to the future, acting in advance of social reality.
Digital Photographer's Handbook by
Suitable for all level of techniques, this is the ultimate photographic handbook for the 21st century! This handbook encourages traditional photographers to experiment with new technology while inspiring experienced users to reach new heights. Readers learn how to get the most out of this new technology that's transforming the world of photography. From improving casual snapshots to learning the secrets of lighting, composition, and digital image manipulation, this book provides a practical, yet in-depth approach on producing better photographs. The Digital Photographer's Handbook includes comprehensive information on the most up-to-date equipment, software, and accessories.
The Experimental Darkroom by
"The Experimental Darkroom is a book focused on traditional black & white photographic materials-darkroom chemistry and silver gelatin paper-now used in many non-traditional ways. The book starts with a comprehensive digital negatives chapter. Topics are divided into five sections: cameraless experimentation, camera experimentation, printing experimentation, finished print experimentation, and a section highlighting contemporary photographers who use these approaches today. Each process under discussion is accompanied by photographic examples and a step-by-step method written in a Just the facts, maam style. The Experimental Darkroom encourages taking risks and having fun. Over 400 images and 71 artists are included in its 276 pages. The outcome will be an expansion of creative options for the silver gelatin print. The options are engaging and now more accessible with digital negatives. Images are no longer solely captured in camera or on analog film. The darkroom is no longer always dark. The print is no longer a pristine and accurate rendition of what the camera sees. Photographers are pushing the boundaries of black & white photographic practice. It is an exciting time to get into the darkroom and play!"--
Our Selves: Photographs by Women Artists by
Conceived in conjunction with an exhibition opening at The Museum of Modern Art in 2022, this publication focuses on an exceptional gift of 108 photographs by women artists from the collection of Helen Kornblum, distinguished member of MoMA's Committee on Photography. The publication will highlight this significant acquisition, which contributes to the Museum's continuous effort to research and rethink twentieth century art history narratives by amplifying the presence of women artists. Like the exhibition, the book will be structured around thematic groupings, arranged chronologically, and each prefaced by a short text. Special attention will be devoted to topics such as: pictorialist portraiture, surrealist explorations, portraits of artists, the social documentary, advertising, photography and language, photojournalism, gender and the media, still life and domesticity, performance for the camera, and to the camera as a means of personal artistic expression. From modernists such as Claude Cahun and Yva to contemporary photographer Catherine Opie, many of the works in this volume elicit conversations about queer subjectivity. Themes related to colonial history and indigeneity are addressed in photographic projects by both Native artists such as Cara Romero and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, and non-Native practitioners including Graciela Iturbide, Sharon Lockhart, Meridel Rubenstein, Tatiana Parcero, and Tracey Moffatt. Lorna Simpson and Carrie Mae Weems offer uniquely feminist African-diasporic viewpoints on the relationship of race and gender. Our Selves presents a series of new perspectives that rise to our current moment, addressing the urgent need for more intersectional conversations in the arts.
The düsseldorf School of Photography by
Now reissued in an attractively priced, compact edition, this classic and authoritative survey is the first detailed account of a seminal era in photographic history. Inspired and guided by Bernd and Hiller Becher, themselves pioneers in the area of documentary photography, the artists of Germany's Düsseldorf School not only pushed the boundaries of their teachers' practice, but also ushered in three generations of technical and compositional achievement that is rivalled in importance only by the arrival of color photography. This book introduces readers to the historic, cultural, and scientific environments in which the Bechers' practice thrived. It explores the teaching philosophies with which they encouraged their students, and considers the qualities that highlight the Düsseldorf School: intricate detail, large scale, painterly distance combined with an immersive quality. The plate section, organized by artist, features 160 beautifully reproduced images by Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Thomas Ruff, Candida Höfer, Axel Hütte, Laurenz Berges, Elger Esser, Simone Nieweg, Jörg Sasse, and Petra Wunderlich.
Black Sun by
Students and practitioners of sound recording since the 1960s have relied on Alec Nesbitt's classic text. Offering a strong grounding in the principles of sound recording and technology, the seventh edition includes information on the latest audio technologies and techniques. In particular, this edition features expanded coverage of virtual studio technology, including digital workstations and other external control devices, as well as the development of surround sound in the broadcasting industry.
Holding Space by
The first book by one of the most in-demand photographers of our time, Holding Space shares one hundred stunning photographs of queer, inter-racial couples, with first-person text about their relationships in this current time period. After the May 2020 murder of George Floyd, and during the Covid pandemic, photographer Ryan Pfluger set out to capture queer, inter-racial couples across the US. It was (and is) a time of intense upheaval and reckoning and Ryan wanted to capture that in the lives and on the bodies of these friends and strangers. The photographs, and the people in them, can be startling in their vulnerability, playful in their poses, and tender to the core. The interviews produce a range of short, revealing stories about the couples.
Through the Lens by
For more than 100 years, National Geographic has set the standard for nature, culture, and wildlife photography. In Through the Lens, 250 spectacular images--some famous, others rarely seen--are gathered in one lavish volume. Through the Lens is divided into geographical regions with a special section devoted to space exploration. Each geographical section features an outstanding array of photographs that exemplifies the area's unique people, wildlife, archaeology, culture, architecture, and environment, accompanied by brief but informative captions. From Barry Bishop's heroic Mount Everest climb in the 1950s to the glorious wildlife of Asia and Africa, from ancient Maya culture to the Afghan woman found 17 years after her piercing green eyes captivated the world, these are some of the finest and most important photographs ever taken. Featuring master photographers from the late 1800s to today, including Frans Lanting, David Doubilet, David Alan Harvey, Jodi Cobb, William Albert Allard, Nick Nichols, and Annie Griffiths Belt, Through the Lens is an extraordinary photographic celebration of some of the greatest the world has to offer.
Print books are arranged on the shelf in Library of Congress Call Number order. Each call number begins with an alphanumeric base (e.g., "BF109.J8") that is followed by a cutter and a date of publication (e.g., "A25 1993"). See a librarian if you need assistance.
Call Number Range (where to look on the bookshelves)
The Camera by
This is an atrractively priced photography classic made accessible to a wider, new audience. It covers everything from "seeing" the finished photo in advance, to lens choices. It is illustrated with many of Ansel Adams most famous images.
Margaret Bourke White by
Once one of the most famous and glamorous women in America, Margaret Bourke-White was a celebrated photographer. In her long and diverse career, spanning the 1920s through the 1950s, she covered landmark events of the twentieth century. Dining with dictators, flying on bombing missions, recording the birth of new nations, she courageously took on every challenge. She loved her work, and no assignment was too difficult. This book presents a fresh look into the exciting life and career of a pioneering female photojournalist whose work rose to the level of art.Chronicling her early life, the book discusses Bourke-White's close relationship with her father -- an inventor who was also interested in photography -- and her love of nature. It then goes on to explore her college years, her use of soft-focus, her industrial photographs, and her eventual assignments for major magazines. As Bourke-White's jobs took her across the United States and around the world, she created compassionate records of thepoverty in,the American South, the Nazi concentration camps, the caste system in India, and racism in South Africa. Her driving ambition to succeed in a male-dominated field continually placed her in adventurous and dangerous situations, and ultimately led her to become the first female photographer for Fortune and Life, the first woman accredited as a war photographer, and the first woman to fly on a bombing mission.Drawing on first-hand research, including interviews with those who knew Bourke-White, and illustrated with more than fifty of her photographs as well as archival images of Bourke-White and her family and friends, this new biography presents a moving introduction to a legendaryphotographer whose work is as meaningful today as when it was first published.
Mastering Digital Photography by
This is a true photography book. It teaches how to take great pictures and make great images that leverage the strengths of computer technology, while taking into account the special needs of digital cameras. The book is not software-specific, nor does it rely on image-editing programs -- it concentrates on creative photo techniques. This technology is getting faster, cheaper, and better. This book explains the convergence of conventional photography and digital photography for those who are looking to make the leap.
Restless Spirit by
Dorothea Lange chose to work as a photographer during a time when family was supposed to come first for a woman. Like so many women, she had a husband and children to take care of'but no matter how hard she tried, family life could not substitute for the work she loved. Her passion was photographing people. During her career, Dorothea Lange captured some of the most desperate and beautiful faces America has seen in photographs. Restless Spirit: The Life and Work of Dorothea Lange includes over sixty of Lange's extraordinary photographs printed in high quality duotones, and chronicles Lange's life from her childhood on the Lower East Side of New York, through her early years as a portrait photographer in San Francisco, to her famous work for the government photographing starving migrant workers in California. Also included are her heart-breaking photographs of Japanese Americans interned on the West Coast during World War II.Author Elizabeth Partridge has woven Lange's own words into her book, creating not just another biography, but an intimate portrait of the artist who put faces on some of the darkest episodes in America's history. Restless Spirit presents a magnificent showcase of work that will not soon be forgotten.Dorothea Lange was Elizabeth Partridge's godmother and her father was Lange's photographic assistant in the 1930s.
RCBC Library is part of the Burlington County Library Sysytem (BCLS)!
Your RCBC Library barcode allows you to check out physical material at other BCLS branches! (separate BCLS Library card needed to be able to access their online resources)
If another branch has a book that you are looking for, either call them to have it placed on hold for you, or we will be happy to call them to have them place a book on hold for you. Note: a book that shows up as being in another branch may be currently in use by another patron or otherwise not on the shelf, so save yourself a trip and call to double check the book's availability.
If another branch has a book that you want and you are not able to visit that branch, we can order it to be delivered to the RCBC Library for you! Note: this method may take 2 weeks or longer for the book to arrive at RCBC.
Inter-library Loans
If a book that you want is not available in the RCBC Library or BCLS, we can attempt to order the book from an outside library to be delivered to the RCBC Library. Note: this method may take 2 weeks or longer for the book to arrive at RCBC.
To order a book via inter-library loan, please either fill out a blank form from JerseyCat or contact Debbie Kolodziej at dkolodzie@rcbc.edu.
Faculty Book Requests
Please fill out this form. For more information, please contact Lanzhen Tian at ltian@rcbc.edu or ext. 1104.
Research assistance - help finding sources, evaluating sources
Online workshops for citing and plagiarism are held throughout the semester. To request a citing workshop, please email library@rcbc.edu