The Photographer's Eye
by John Szarkowski
from The Museum of Modern Art, New York
The Photographer's Eye by John Szarkowski is a twentieth-century classic--an indispensable introduction to the visual language of photography. Based on a landmark exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in 1964, and originally published in 1966, the book has long been out of print. It is now available again to a new generation of photographers and lovers of photography in this duotone printing that closely follows the original. Szarkowski's compact text eloquently complements skillfully selected and sequenced groupings of 172 photographs drawn from the entire history and range of the medium. Celebrated works by such masters as Cartier-Bresson, Evans, Steichen, Strand, and Weston are juxtaposed with vernacular documents and even amateur snapshots to analyze the fundamental challenges and opportunities that all photographers have faced. Szarkowski, the legendary curator who worked at the Museum from 1962 to 1991, has published many influential books. But none more radically and succinctly demonstrates why--as U.S. News & World Report put it in 1990--"whether Americans know it or not," his thinking about photography "has become our thinking about photography."
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
by Roland Barthes
from Hill and Wang
On Photography
by Susan Sontag
from Picador
Rediscovering Jacob Riis: The Reformer, His Journalism, and His Photographs
by Bonnie Yochelson
from New Press
A provocative new illustrated history of the famed early chronicler of New York's immigrant poor, seen here as an opportunistic, camera-toting social reformer whose legacy lives on.
"I don't remember my mother or my aunts and uncles talking of their father as a photographer....In his letters—I have read most of them—he never mentions a camera."—J. Riis Owre (grandson of Jacob Riis)
More than ninety years after his death, Jacob Riis maintains a stubbornly persistent hold on the American imagination. Remembered as a pioneering photographer, he was the first to document the state of New York's slums, publicizing in haunting photographs the plight of the urban poor at the height of European immigration to the city. But Riis confessed to being "no good at all as a photographer" and in recent years has been disparaged for racist views and political opportunism.
In Rediscovering Jacob Riis, Bonnie Yochelson and Daniel Czitrom address the complex legacy of the pioneering social reformer. In a work of highly original scholarship, they reclaim Riis from the art camp, relocating him in the field of social and cultural history. Their provocative new book reveals Riis to be an inspired self-promoter who, although neither an original thinker nor a serious photographer, nevertheless framed the discussion of urban poverty in terms still relevant today.
Extensively illustrated with Riis's images, Rediscovering Jacob Riis is revisionist history at its best, as appealing to photographers, journalists, and social historians as it is to the general reader.
Why People Photograph
by Robert Adams
from Aperture
Adams, a noted photographer of the American West, dislikes words that describe pictures. In this collection of poetic, thought-provoking and highly original essays, he examines Paul Strand's devotion to America and analyzes the origins of his art; he looks at the contradictions in Ansel Adams' life and work, and comes to his own conclusions. He writes movingly not only of people but of place--his beloved West--and his belief that "we live in several landscapes at once, among them the landscape of hope..."
This critically acclaimed work brings us a new selection of poignant essays by master photographer Robert Adams. In this volume, Adams evinces his firm belief in the importance of art. Photographers "may or may not make a living by photography," he writes, "but they are alive by it."
History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present
by Beaumont Newhall
from Bulfinch
A World History of Photography
by Naomi Rosenblum
from Abbeville Press
This sumptuously illustrated volume, hailed as an indispensable work on the fascinatingly expressive photographic medium, has been revised and expanded to cover images by contemporary photographers working in the twenty-first century.
The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art)
by Charlotte Cotton
from Thames & Hudson
The first accessible guide to the key artists and uses of photography in contemporary art since the mid-1980s.
An ideal introduction to this popular subject in contemporary culture, this highly readable book surveys work by more than 150 artist-photographers: Andreas Gursky, Nan Goldin, Philip-Lorca di Corcia, Richard Billingham, Jurgen Teller, Thomas Demand, Yinka Shonibare, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, Wolfgang Tillmans, and many more.
More than 200 examples of the most important works are illustrated. Themed chapters consider subjects such as narrative and storytelling in art photography, photographing the everyday and the insignificant, the use of photography in conceptual art, and the cool, detached, objective aesthetic prevalent in current art photography. 210 illustrations, 100 in color.
Seizing the Light: A History of Photography
by Robert Hirsch
from McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
Develop your image of photography with Seizing the Light - the first major photographic history written in 20 years and the most sharply focused and up-to-date history of photography available. Hirsch delivers a clear picture from every angle by tracking the development of photographic style from the earliest pioneers to the modern masters. He examines photographic technology from the pinhole camera to digitalization and brings to light the intriguing artistic and scientific advances that have entwined photography with every aspect of contemporary society.
The Photography Reader
from Routledge
The Photography Reader is a comprehensive collection of twentieth-century writings on photography- its production, its uses and effects. Encompassing essays by photographers including Edward Weston and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and key thinkers from Walter Benjamin to Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, the reader traces the development of ideas about photography, exploring issues such as identity, consumption, the gaze, and digital technology. Each themed section features an editor's introduction setting ideas and debates in their historical and theoretical context.
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