Pages as Presents

One of Robert Capa's photographs taken in Monreale, outside Palermo, Sicily, in July 1943. American troops had just entered the city. An interviewer once asked Capa how he captured such relaxed and natural expressions in close-up. "Like people and let them know it," he said.

Elliott Erwitt is the wittiest man to ever pick up a camera. USA, 1963 from Snaps.

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Master Class

Cholesterol's Revenge, from Irving Penn's Still Life

This year we're blessed with books encompassing the careers of noted photographers Robert Capa and Elliott Erwitt and a new Irving Penn offering that reminds us of the range of one of America's leading fashion photographers. Capa is the definitive photojournalist -- a photographer of war and international politics; Erwitt is the leading social observer and absurdist; and Penn, along with Richard Avedon, is the country's most distinguished fashion photographer.

Robert Capa was a prodigy whose first photograph was published when he was 18 -- it's an astonishing portrait of Trotsky speaking in Copenhagen. Born in 1913, by the mid-Thirties Capa had found his great subject -- war. His photographs of the Spanish Civil War taken in 1936 created the lasting pictures of that conflict, particularly the iconic image of the soldier in the white shirt, just shot, falling with his rifle. By World War II, Capa was a celebrity, but insisted in landing at Normandy in a landing craft with the American infantry. His images of that battle and many others in WWII have become part of our visual memory of the 20th century, one that deepens all the hyperbolic rhetoric about "the greatest generation." Robert Capa was killed at the age of 41 when he stepped on a land mine in IndoChina. The images in Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection (Phaidon, $69.95) were selected by his brother Cornell Capa.

Elliott Erwitt is the wittiest man to ever pick up a camera. Snaps (Phaidon, $69.95), a title that reflects Erwitt's opinion that photography is no big deal, is a beautiful reminder of his great career and of his opportunistic eye. The lasting images include a portrait of lovers kissing shot from their reflection in a rear-view mirror, juxtapositions of posing women and poised mannequins, juxtapositions of huge dogs and tiny dogs (Erwitt is the king of funny dogs.) and straight and memorable snapshots of a wide variety of celebrities including Marilyn Monroe, Lyndon Johnson, and photographer Edward Steichen. Snaps just brims with humanity and good cheer.

Irving Penn's images of fashion and portraits of celebrities have decorated the pages of Vogue for more than 50 years. At some point, Penn began taking pictures of whimsical still lifes as something of a goof. From the jacket photo of Still Life (Bulfinch, $85) -- a stack of frozen vegetables -- to tiers of bones and piles of cigarette butts, these images reflect the glamour photographer at play. My favorite is the shot of a raw steak with two raw eggs, two slices of butter, and a potato chip all arranged on the meat -- it's called "Cholesterol's Revenge." A little whimsy, however, goes a long way -- particularly at a pricey $85. Recommended only for the Irving Penn completist.