This book contains 35 set of examples of serial photographs - and they might as well likely present you the similar sets of photos that might give you inspiration.

Harald Mante states that "serial photography" is taking a series of photos that deal either with single or multiple themes, and in which each image has its own formal qualities. That is in contrast to "sequential photography" in which has an overriding theme or serves to visually explain accompanying text. Advantages he states are: shooting whenever and wherever, using portrait or landscape mode, having full freedom to discard images or augment them, and free-form presentation of the finished product.

He illustrates the ideas with many photos and little text. The text primarily contains some tips on enhancing the visual quality of the photos, with a little of "this is how I do it" prose.

General themes explored include prosaic subjects such as houses, stairs, tables and chairs, plastic, balloons, well, you get the picture. The book closes with some additional tricks to add interest to the shots.

This is the kind of book in which pictures largely replace words. If you're looking to get ideas on composition and presentation, there are many here, but they're often in the photos themselves. As one looks at the reproduced images, a sense of "I could do that" is often replaced by "how did he do that" or "Oh, now I see what he was seeing." In that sense this is a book about the artistic use of the camera to depict ordinary scenes, scenes that might be overlooked.

This book is unlikely to attract a wide following, but for the photographer who wishes to study how to add interest to common scenes, it will provide many avenues to pursue.

It is said that the development of photography allowed painting, as an art, to free itself of the burden of representation and concentrate on what it did best: line, color, and shape. The theory is that this ultimately led to abstract expressionist painting. Apparently photographer Harold Mante is unwilling to cede even that space to painting,

Most of the pages of "Serial Photography" are devoted to collections of images which have the same subject matter: thirteen photographs of plastic, or a dozen photographs of umbrellas and sunshades, or twelve pictures of laundry. A smaller part is devoted to design theory with collections of photographs of two subjects, or three subjects, or circles. Another part deals with color theory, with pictures emphasizing a single shade, or contrasting colors, or pastels of the same hue. Finally there is a part dealing with special themes like mirror images or glass facades. There is also a short section about displaying serial images. Each set of images is accompanied with a few words about how to photograph the subjects, but I confess to feeling that these words had been added to create what someone saw as a better method of marketing the photographs, that is, as an instructional manual. While there are some good points about technique, basically this book is a portfolio of serial images by Mante.

One might think that there would be some synergistic effect from the grouping of subjects that would help to explicate the subjects. However, content here really is immaterial. Rather these pictures are all about form. Right from the cover, which displays a dozen pictures of cars draped in clothes of different colors, what seizes the eye is the color, or the shape, or the line. The twentieth century critic of modern art, Clement Greenberg, would have loved these images. They seem far more like abstract impressionist paintings, particularly those of the color field artists, than photographs, even though photographic methodology was used.

Whether this is the reader's cup of tea will depend on the reader. I felt the way I often do when looking at the Abstract Expressionists. I get it. Now what? On the other hand, when it comes to seeing what photography can take from modern painting, this book is as good as anything by, say Jerry Uelsmann, and it doesn't involve a single bit of compositing.