Photography, Criticism & Essays

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John Szarkowski
The Photographer's Eye
by The Museum of Modern Art, New York (Paperback) (Release Date: 2007-03-01)

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 ...

Susan Sontag
On Photography
by Picador (Paperback)

Winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award for Criticism.One of the most highly regarded books of its kind, On Photography first appeared in 1977 and is described by its author as “a progress of essays about the meaning and career of photographs.” It begins with the famous “In Plato’s Cave”essay, then offers five other prose meditations on this topic, and concludes with a fascinating and far-reaching “Brief Anthology of Quotations.”

Roland Barthes
Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography
by Hill and Wang (Paperback)

This personal, wide-ranging, and contemplative volume--and the last book Barthes published--finds the author applying his influential perceptiveness and associative insight to the subject of photography. To this end, several black-and-white photos (by the likes of Avedon, Clifford, Hine, Mapplethorpe, Nadar, Van Der Zee, and so forth) are reprinted throughout the text.

Naomi Rosenblum
A World History of Photography
by Abbeville Press (Paperback)

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.

Bonnie Yochelson, Daniel Czitrom
Rediscovering Jacob Riis: The Reformer, His Journalism, and His Photographs
by New Press (Hardcover)

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 ...

Terry Barrett
Criticizing Photographs: An Introduction to Understanding Images
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages (Paperback)

This brief text is designed to help both beginning and advanced students of photography better develop and articulate thoughtful criticism. Organized around the major activities of criticism (describing, interpreting, evaluating, and theorizing), Criticizing Photographs provides a clear framework and vocabulary for students' critical skill development. The fourth edition includes new black and white and color images, updated commentary, a completely revised chapter on theory that offers a broad discussion of digital images, and an expanded chapter eight on studio critiques and writing about photographs, plus examples of student writing and critique.

Robert Adams
Why People Photograph
by Aperture (Paperback) (Release Date: 2005-06-15)

Beaumont Newhall
History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present
by Bulfinch (Paperback)

Robert Hirsch
Seizing the Light: A History of Photography
by McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages (Paperback)

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.

Charlotte Cotton
The Photograph as Contemporary Art (World of Art)
by Thames & Hudson (Paperback)

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.

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