Description

Book Synopsis

Following on from its hugely successful first edition, The Photography Reader: History and Theory provides deeper insight into the critical discussions around photography its production, its uses and its effects. Presenting both the historical ideas and the continuing theoretical debates within photography and photographic study, this second edition contains essays by photographers including Edward Weston and László Moholy-Nagy, and key thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag.

Along with its companion text The Photography Cultures Reader: Representation, Agency and Identity this is the most comprehensive introduction to photography and photographic criticism.

This new edition features:

Over 50 additional photographs

New essays from photographers and academics

Revised introductions, setting ideas and debates in their historical and theoretical context

Sections on Art phot

Trade Review

‘A valuable and accessible resource … an outstanding aid for photography students and enthusiasts … highly recommended.’ - Media International Australia inc Culture & Policy



Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Notes on contributors

Acknowledgements

General Introduction

PART ONE

Reflections on Photography

Introduction

1 Roland Barthes

Extracts from Camera Lucida

2 Marjorie Perloff

What Has Occurred Only Once: Barthes's Winter Garden/Boltanski’s Archives of the Dead

3 Walter Benjamin

Extracts from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

4 W. J. T. Mitchell

Benjamin and the Political Economy of the Photograph

5 Siegfried Kracauer

Photography

6 André Bazin

The Ontology of the Photographic Image

7 Susan Sontag

Photography within the Humanities

8 Wright Morris

In Our Image

PART TWO

Photographic Seeing

Introduction

9 Hubert Damisch

Five Notes for a Phenomenology of the Photographic Image

10 Osip Brik

What the Eye does not See

11 László Moholy-Nagy

A New Instrument of Vision

12 Tina Modotti

Manifesto by Tina Modotti "Sobre la Fotografía" (On Photography)

13 John Szarkowski

Introduction to The Photographer's Eye

14 Edward Weston

Seeing Photographically

PART THREE

Meaning and Interpretation

Introduction

15 Roland Barthes

Rhetoric of the Image

16 Umberto Eco

A Photograph

17 Victor Burgin

Looking at Photographs

18 Ian Walker

Through the Picture Plane: On Looking into Photographs

19 Estelle Jussim

The Eternal Moment: Photography and Time

20 Elizabeth Edwards

Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image

21 Christian Metz

Photography and Fetish

22 Peter Wollen

Fire and Ice

PART FOUR

Art Photography

Introduction

23 Abigail Solomon-Godeau

Photography After Art Photography

24 Rosalind Krauss

Photography’s Discursive Spaces: Landscape/View

25 Andy Grundberg,

The Crisis of the Real: Photography and Postmodernism

26 Steve Edwards

Snapshooters of History: passages on the postmodern argument

27 Lucy Soutter

Why Art Photography?

28 Victor Burgin

Conversation with Hilde Van Gelder

PART FIVE

Documentary

Introduction

29 John Tagg

Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the Growth of the State

30 Darren Newbury

Photography and the Visualisation of Working Class Lives in Britain

31 Martha Rosler

In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On Documentary Photography)

32 Lisa Henderson

Access and Consent in Public Photography

33 Sarah Kember

‘The shadow of the object’: photography and realism

34 Hilde Van Gelder and Jan Baetens

Introduction: A Note on Critical Realism Today

35 Lynn Berger

The Authentic Amateur and the Democracy of Collecting Photographs

36 Edmundo Desnoes

Cuba Made Me So

PART SIX

Photomedia

Introduction

37 David Bate, Sarah Kember, Martin Lister and Liz Wells

Editorial Statement

38 Geoffrey Batchen

Photogenics

39 Daniel Palmer

Redundancy in Photography

40 Lev Manovich

The Paradoxes of Digital Photography

41 Fred Ritchin

Extracts from Of Pixels and Paradox

42 Martin Lister

Introduction from The Photographic Image in Digital Culture

43 Matthew Biro

From Analogue to Digital Photography: Bernd and Hilla Becher and Andreas Gursky

44 Steven Skopik

Digital Photography: Truth, Meaning, Aesthetics

Index

The Photography Reader History and Theory

    Product form

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    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Mon 29 Jun 2026.

    A Hardback by Liz Wells

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      View other formats and editions of The Photography Reader History and Theory by Liz Wells

      Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
      Publication Date: 11/6/2018 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780415749176, 978-0415749176
      ISBN10: 0415749174

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      Following on from its hugely successful first edition, The Photography Reader: History and Theory provides deeper insight into the critical discussions around photography its production, its uses and its effects. Presenting both the historical ideas and the continuing theoretical debates within photography and photographic study, this second edition contains essays by photographers including Edward Weston and László Moholy-Nagy, and key thinkers such as Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag.

      Along with its companion text The Photography Cultures Reader: Representation, Agency and Identity this is the most comprehensive introduction to photography and photographic criticism.

      This new edition features:

      Over 50 additional photographs

      New essays from photographers and academics

      Revised introductions, setting ideas and debates in their historical and theoretical context

      Sections on Art phot

      Trade Review

      ‘A valuable and accessible resource … an outstanding aid for photography students and enthusiasts … highly recommended.’ - Media International Australia inc Culture & Policy



      Table of Contents

      Contents

      List of Illustrations

      Notes on contributors

      Acknowledgements

      General Introduction

      PART ONE

      Reflections on Photography

      Introduction

      1 Roland Barthes

      Extracts from Camera Lucida

      2 Marjorie Perloff

      What Has Occurred Only Once: Barthes's Winter Garden/Boltanski’s Archives of the Dead

      3 Walter Benjamin

      Extracts from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

      4 W. J. T. Mitchell

      Benjamin and the Political Economy of the Photograph

      5 Siegfried Kracauer

      Photography

      6 André Bazin

      The Ontology of the Photographic Image

      7 Susan Sontag

      Photography within the Humanities

      8 Wright Morris

      In Our Image

      PART TWO

      Photographic Seeing

      Introduction

      9 Hubert Damisch

      Five Notes for a Phenomenology of the Photographic Image

      10 Osip Brik

      What the Eye does not See

      11 László Moholy-Nagy

      A New Instrument of Vision

      12 Tina Modotti

      Manifesto by Tina Modotti "Sobre la Fotografía" (On Photography)

      13 John Szarkowski

      Introduction to The Photographer's Eye

      14 Edward Weston

      Seeing Photographically

      PART THREE

      Meaning and Interpretation

      Introduction

      15 Roland Barthes

      Rhetoric of the Image

      16 Umberto Eco

      A Photograph

      17 Victor Burgin

      Looking at Photographs

      18 Ian Walker

      Through the Picture Plane: On Looking into Photographs

      19 Estelle Jussim

      The Eternal Moment: Photography and Time

      20 Elizabeth Edwards

      Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image

      21 Christian Metz

      Photography and Fetish

      22 Peter Wollen

      Fire and Ice

      PART FOUR

      Art Photography

      Introduction

      23 Abigail Solomon-Godeau

      Photography After Art Photography

      24 Rosalind Krauss

      Photography’s Discursive Spaces: Landscape/View

      25 Andy Grundberg,

      The Crisis of the Real: Photography and Postmodernism

      26 Steve Edwards

      Snapshooters of History: passages on the postmodern argument

      27 Lucy Soutter

      Why Art Photography?

      28 Victor Burgin

      Conversation with Hilde Van Gelder

      PART FIVE

      Documentary

      Introduction

      29 John Tagg

      Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records and the Growth of the State

      30 Darren Newbury

      Photography and the Visualisation of Working Class Lives in Britain

      31 Martha Rosler

      In, Around, and Afterthoughts (On Documentary Photography)

      32 Lisa Henderson

      Access and Consent in Public Photography

      33 Sarah Kember

      ‘The shadow of the object’: photography and realism

      34 Hilde Van Gelder and Jan Baetens

      Introduction: A Note on Critical Realism Today

      35 Lynn Berger

      The Authentic Amateur and the Democracy of Collecting Photographs

      36 Edmundo Desnoes

      Cuba Made Me So

      PART SIX

      Photomedia

      Introduction

      37 David Bate, Sarah Kember, Martin Lister and Liz Wells

      Editorial Statement

      38 Geoffrey Batchen

      Photogenics

      39 Daniel Palmer

      Redundancy in Photography

      40 Lev Manovich

      The Paradoxes of Digital Photography

      41 Fred Ritchin

      Extracts from Of Pixels and Paradox

      42 Martin Lister

      Introduction from The Photographic Image in Digital Culture

      43 Matthew Biro

      From Analogue to Digital Photography: Bernd and Hilla Becher and Andreas Gursky

      44 Steven Skopik

      Digital Photography: Truth, Meaning, Aesthetics

      Index

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