Recommended Reading: A Book List of Writings on Photography

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  Aperture Photography Changes Everything Photography Changes Everything offers a provocative rethinking of photography’s impact on our culture and our daily lives. Compiling hundreds of images and responses from leading authorities on photography, it offers a brilliant, reader-friendly exploration of the many ways in which photographs package information and values, demand and hold attention, and shape our knowledge of and experience in the world. The volume draws on the extraordinary visual assets of the Smithsonian Institution’s museums, science centers and archives to launch an unprecedented interdisciplinary dialogue on photography’s capacity to shape and change our experience of the world. Photography Changes Everything features over 300 images and nearly 100 engaging short texts commissioned from experts, writers, inventors, public figures and others--from Hugh Hefner to John Baldessari, John Waters, Robert Adams, Sandra Phillips and many others. Each story responds to images selected by project contributors. Together they engage readers in a timely exploration of the extent to . . . . [see book details]

  Edited and introduction by Marvin Heiferman. Foreword by Merry Foresta. Pbk, 7 x 10 in. / 356 pgs / 250 color. Publication Date: 6/30/2012 List Price: US $39.95

  Daylight Photographs Not Taken Photographs Not Taken is a collection of photographers’ essays about failed attempts to make a picture. Editor Will Steacy asked each photographer to abandon the conventional tools needed to make a photograph--camera, lens, film--and instead make a photograph using words, to capture the image (and its attendant memories) that never made it through the lens. In each essay, the photograph has been stripped down to its barest and most primitive form: the idea behind it. This collection provides a unique and original interpretation of the experience of photographing, and allows the reader into a world rarely seen: the image making process itself. Photographs Not Taken features contributions by: Peter Van Agtmael, Dave Anderson, Timothy Archibald, Roger Ballen, Thomas Bangsted, Juliana Beasley, Nina Berman, Elinor Carucci, Kelli Connell, Paul D’Amato, Tim Davis, KayLynn Deveney, Doug Dubois, Rian Dundon, Amy Elkins, Jim Goldberg, Emmet Gowin, Gregory Halpern, Tim Hetherington, Todd Hido, Rob Hornstra, . . . . [see book details]

  Edited by Will Steacy. Introduction by Lyle Rexer. Pbk, 5.5 x 8 in. / 223 pgs. Publication Date: 3/31/2012 List Price: US $14.95

  Aperture Diane Arbus: A Chronology Diane Arbus: A Chronology is the closest thing possible to a contemporaneous diary by one of the most daring, influential and controversial artists of the twentieth century. Drawn primarily from Arbus' extensive correspondence with friends, family and colleagues, personal notebooks and other unpublished writings, this beautifully produced volume reveals the private thoughts and motivations of an artist whose astonishing vision derived from the courage to see things as they are and the grace to permit them simply to be. Further rounding out Arbus' life and work are exhaustively researched footnotes that amplify the entire chronology. A section at the end of the book provides biographies for 55 family members, friends and colleagues, from Marvin Israel and Lisette Model to Weegee and August Sander. Describing the Chronology in Art in America, Leo Rubinfien noted that Arbus... wrote as well as she photographed, and her letters, where she heard each nuance of her . . . . [see book details]

  Text by Elisabeth Sussman, Doon Arbus, Jeff L. Rosenheim. Pbk, 6.5 x 8 in. / 177 pgs. Publication Date: 10/31/2011 List Price: US $29.95

  Aperture Core Curriculum Writings on Photography Core Curriculum: Writings on Photography is the long-awaited collection of essays, reviews and lectures by Tod Papageorge, one of the most influential voices in photography today. As a photographer and the Walker Evans Professor of Photography at the Yale University School of Art, Papageorge has shaped the work and thought of generations of artist-photographers, and, through his critical writings--some of which have gained a cult following through online postings--he has earned a reputation as an unusually eloquent and illuminating guide to the work of many of the most important figures in twentieth-century photography. Among the artists Papageorge discusses in this essential volume are Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Robert Frank (with Walker Evans), Robert Adams and his close friend Garry Winogrand. The book also includes texts that examine the more general questions of photography's relationship to poetry, and how the evolution of the medium's early technologies led to the twentieth- century creation of . . . . [see book details]

  By Tod Papageorge. Flexi, 6 x 8.5 in. / 208 pgs / 3 color / 33 b&w. Publication Date: 7/31/2011 List Price: US $29.95

  Valiz Take Place Photography and Place from Multiple Perspectives For a medium so potentially disembodied” and transparent, photography can offer a unique capacity to concretize place, especially when used in art installations in which photographs may be assembled from numerous sources and locations. Take Place investigates this particular implementation of photography through various scholarly disciplines—art history, photography theory, the history of architecture and social geography—and through creative disciplines such as installation art, performance, architecture and especially multimedia projects. Take Place offers points of departure for the study of photography as it is deployed within other media. . . . . [see book details]

  Edited by Helen Westgeest. Text by Kitty Zijlmans, Thomas Crow, Barbara Hooper, Caroline van Eck. Pbk, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 288 pgs / 77 b&w. Publication Date: 2/28/2010 List Price: US $28.95

  Aperture Robert Adams: Why People Photograph Selected Essays and Reviews A now classic text on the art, Why People Photograph gathers a selection of essays by the great master photographer Robert Adams, tackling such diverse subjects as collectors, humor, teaching, money and dogs. Adams also writes brilliantly on Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Laura Gilpin, Judith Joy Ross, Susan Meiselas, Michael Schmidt, Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange and Eugène Atget. The book closes with two essays on working conditions” in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century American West, and the essay Two Landscapes.” Adams writes: At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are.” . . . . [see book details]

  Text and essays by Robert Adams. Paperback, 5.5 x 8.25 in. / 189 pgs / 29 reproductions throughout. Publication Date: 6/15/2005 List Price: US $16.95

  Aperture Robert Adams: Beauty in Photography Essays in Defense of Traditional Values The eight essays in Beauty in Photography provide a critical appreciation of photography by one of its foremost proponents. The result is a rare book of criticism, alive to the pleasure and mysteries of true exploration. . . . . [see book details]

  Essays by Robert Adams. Paperback, 5.5 x 8.25 in. / 112 pgs / 23 reproductions throughout. Publication Date: 6/15/2005 List Price: US $16.95

  Aperture/LACMA Words Without Pictures Words Without Pictures was originally conceived by curator Charlotte Cotton as a means of creating spaces for discourse around current issues in photography. Every month for a year, beginning in November 2007, an artist, educator, critic or curator was invited to contribute a short unillustrated essay about an aspect of emerging photography. Each piece was available on the Words Without Pictures website for one month and was accompanied by a discussion forum focused on its specific topic. Over the course of its month-long life,” each essay received both invited and unsolicited responses from a wide range of interested parties. All of these essays, responses and other provocations are gathered together here. Previously issued as a print-on-demand title, we are pleased to present Words Without Pictures to the trade for the first time as part of the Aperture Ideas series. The contributors are Amy Adler, George Baker, Christopher Bedford, Walead Beshty, Sarah . . . . [see book details]

  Edited by Alex Klein. Contributions by Charlotte Cotton, Jason Evans, Kevin Moore, Charlie White, Paul Graham, Sze Tsung Leong, Walead Beshty, George Baker, Harrell Fletcher, Marisa Olson, James Welling, et al. Pbk, 5.75 x 8.25 in. / 510 pgs. Publication Date: 4/30/2010 List Price: US $24.95

  Aperture The Pleasures of Good Photographs If looking at photographs is a pleasurable activity, it is pleasurable in a complex, transformative, frequently unsettling sense. It is not pleasure unalloyed, for no profound pleasure is pure... Like many truly enriching pleasures... photography has its dark, troubling, even dangerous aspects.” Gerry Badger The Pleasures of Good Photographs is an intellectual and aesthetic excursion led by Gerry Badger, one of the field's eminent critics and popular writers and the author of more than a dozen books including both volumes of The Photobook: A History. In this new volume of essays, Badger offers insight into some of his favorite images, artists and themes, drawing upon nearly three decades of experience writing and thinking about photography. With deep discernment and a readable blend of scholarly finesse and wit, Badger elucidates works by dozens of photographers, from Dorothea Lange and Eugène Atget to Martin Parr, Luc Delahaye, Susan Lipper and Paul Graham. Among the . . . . [see book details]

  By Gerry Badger. Pbk, 6 x 8.5 in. / 256 pgs / 17 color / 18 b&w. Publication Date: 6/30/2010 List Price: US $29.95

  The Museum of Modern Art, New York Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art Originally published in 1973, this marvelous collection of photographs with accompanying texts by the revered late Museum of Modern Art photography curator John Szarkowski has long been recognized as a classic. Reissued in 1999-with new digital duotones-this volume is now available to a new generation of readers. "This is a picture book, and its first purpose is to provide the material for simple delectation," says Szarkowski in his introduction to this first survey of The Museum of Modern Art's photography collection. A visually splendid album, the book is both a treasury of remarkable photographs and a lively introduction to the aesthetics and the historical development of photography. Since 1930, when the Museum accessioned its first photograph, it has assembled an extraordinary and wide-ranging collection of pictures for preservation, study and exhibition. Among the outstanding figures represented here are Hill and Adamson, Cameron, O'Sullivan, Atget, Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, Weston, Kertész, Evans, Cartier-Bresson, Lange, Brassaï, . . . . [see book details]

  By John Szarkowski. Pbk, 9 x 11 in. / 216 pgs / 100 duotone. Publication Date: 3/1/2009 List Price: US $39.95

  The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Printed Picture The Printed Picture traces the changing technology of picture-making from the Renaissance to the present, focusing on the vital role of images in multiple copies. The book surveys printing techniques before the invention of photography; the photographic processes that began to appear in the early nineteenth century; the marriage of printing and photography; and the rapidly evolving digital inventions of our time. From woodblocks to chromolithographs, from engravings to bar codes, from daguerreotypes to contemporary color photographs, the book succinctly examines the full range of pictorial processes. Exploring how pictures look by describing how they are made, author Richard Benson reaches fascinating and original conclusions about what pictures can mean. Although many of the techniques he discusses have been used to create exceptional works of art, Benson concentrates on the typical, everyday pictures that have played and continue to play such a prominent role in our lives. In conjunction with the . . . . [see book details]

  By Richard Benson Hardback, 8 x 10.5 in. / 308 pgs / 326 color. Publication Date: 10/1/2008 List Price: US $60.00

  Aperture Photography After Frank Essays by Philip Gefter In Photography After Frank, former New York Times writer and picture editor Philip Gefter narrates the tale of contemporary photography, beginning at the pivotal moment when Robert Frank commenced his seminal works of the 1950s. Along the way, he connects the dots of photography's evolution into what it is today, forging links between its episodes to reveal unsuspected leaps. Gefter takes Frank's The Americans as a decisive challenge to photographic objectivity, with its grainy, off-hand-seeming spontaneity and its documentation of life beyond the picket fence. Thus viewed, The Americans provides Gefter with a bridge to the phenomenon of the staged document and Postmodernism's further challenge to image fidelity. Other areas of discussion include photojournalism, the recent diversity of portraiture styles, the influence of private and corporate collections on curatorial decisions and how the market shapes art making. Throughout Photography After Frank, Gefter deftly demonstrates Frank's legacy in the work of dozens . . . . [see book details]

  by Philip Gefter. Hbk, 6 x 8.5 in. / 224 pgs / 30 color / 45 b&w. Publication Date: 6/1/2009 List Price: US $29.95

  Aperture Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Mind's Eye Writings on Photography and Photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson's writings on photography and photographers have been published sporadically over the past 45 years. His essays--several of which have never before been translated into English--are collected here for the first time. The Mind's Eye features Cartier-Bresson's famous text on the decisive moment” as well as his observations on Moscow, Cuba and China during turbulent times. These essays ring with the same immediacy and visual intensity that characterize his photography. . . . . [see book details]

  Essays by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Hardcover, 5.25 x 8.25 in. / 112 pgs / 11 reproductions throughout. Publication Date: 6/15/2005 List Price: US $19.95

  Aperture Light Matters Vicki Goldberg, one of the leading voices in the field of photography criticism, is well known for her cogent and perceptive writing, which is regularly featured in such national publications as The New York Times. First published in 2005, Light Matters gathers a selection of this remarkable author's essays and criticism, culled from her writings published over the previous 25 years. Goldberg's take on photography is both insightful and encompassing: her subjects range from pop imagery to war journalism, from photo-booth portraits to manipulated digital imagery, from the boredom of voyeurism to the great preponderance of tragic photographs in the news. She brings new light to the work of the medium's "old masters," among them Walker Evans, Lotte Jacobi and Lartigue, writing with equal acuity about contemporary trailblazers such as Bill Viola, Daido Moriyama and Bastienne Schmidt. Goldberg also tackles provocative larger issues facing the medium, such as the potentially transgressive . . . . [see book details]

  By Vicki Goldberg. Pbk, 5.5 x 8.5 in. / 248 pgs / 27 b&w. Publication Date: 11/30/2010 List Price: US $19.95

  Aperture Singular Images Essays on Remarkable Photographs Spanning 170 years, from William Henry Fox Talbot's first negative to Jeff Wall's latest constructed tableau, Singular Images collects thought-provoking essays on individual photographs, one image per writer. The essayists consider, sometimes in highly personal ways, the artist's intention, their own response, the work's technical complexities, its historical context or its formal properties. Each text captures a sense of how challenging it is to create a perfect single piece. Art photography has been increasingly well-surveyed in recent years, but individual works have rarely been written about at length, perhaps because of lingering doubt that a single photograph can command the kind of sustained attention often given to individual paintings or sculptures. Singular Images is a lively inquiry into the value of analyzing individual photographs, and it persuasively encourages the reader to engage at length and in depth with one remarkable piece at a time. With its broad scope and diverse range . . . . [see book details]

  Edited by Sophie Howarth. Essays by Darsie Alexander, Geoffrey Batchen, David Campany, Roger Hargreaves, Sophie Howarth, Liz Jobey, Sheena Wagstaff, Mary Warner Marien, Val Williams, Nigel Warburton and Dominic Willsdon. Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5 in. / 128 pgs / 11 color. Publication Date: 2/1/2006 List Price: US $19.95

  Aperture Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers On Their Art From Matthew Brady to Cindy Sherman, 150 artists are represented in this new, combined volume of Photography Speaks, spanning the entire history of the medium. This compendium contains biographical information and an original statement from each artist, accompanied by an example of their work. A favorite with photographers and requisite course material for many students, the discourse on art and artistry contained in this volume is of unprecedented scale-collecting the writing of such diverse photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Eugène Atget, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Hine, August Sander, Man Ray, Weegee, Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, Robert Heinecken and Lucas Samaras. New additions include selections from Nadar, William Eggleston, Eikoh Hosoe, Gordon Parks, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Christian Boltanski, Thomas Struth and Rineke Dijkstra. The contributors expound upon topics such as their method and intentions, the state of the arts, or the medium itself. Photography Speaks has been and will continue to be . . . . [see book details]

  Edited by Brooks Johnson. Paperback, 6.75 x 10 in. / 320 pgs / 159 reproductions throughout. Publication Date: 6/15/2005 List Price: US $29.95

  Aperture Between the Eyes: Essays On Photography And Politics David Levi Strauss is a writer whose visual and intellectual sensibilities are both acute and expansive. His trenchant writings on photography and photographers have been collected for this volume from a broad range of magazines, including Aperture, Artforum and The Nation. In Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics, Strauss tackles subjects as diverse as Photography and Propaganda,” the imagery of dreams, Sebastiao Salgado's epic social documents and the deeply personal photographic revelations of Francesca Woodman. The timely issue of photographic legitimacy is addressed in the essay Photography and Belief,” and in The Highest Degree of Illusion,” Strauss discusses the media frenzy surrounding the events of September 11. As our world is shaped more and more by images and their slipperiness, what he calls a media pandemonium” in its root meaning of the place of all howling demons,” we need a mind and voice like Levi Strauss' to bring clarity . . . . [see book details]

  By David Levi Strauss. Edited by Diana C. Stoll. Introduction by John Berger. Paperback, 5.5 x 8.25 in. / 208 pgs / 28 color / 19 duotone. Publication Date: 8/15/2005 List Price: US $17.95

  Adarte Message from the Darkroom Once upon a time, in the first half of the twentieth century, photography was considered a purely mechanical art--if it was considered an art at all. Carlo Mollino's Message From the Darkroom, originally published in Italy in 1949 and now one of the most coveted books in the history of photography, was one of the first strikes against that attitude, and one of the most visually extraordinary. In 323 plates illustrating the work of 132 photographers and nine painters, Mollino traced a history of the form and the evolution of taste over the years, highlighting the work of Nadar and Hill, Atget, Alvarez Bravo and Man Ray, with a chapter dedicated to each. An equal number of pages are allotted to mastery of photographic techniques, including retouching, as every means to make the print coincide with the artist's vision was legitimate in Mollino's eyes--even required. For work to reach the status . . . . [see book details]

  By Carlo Mollino. Introduction by Fulvio Ferrari . Hardcover, 9.75 x 13.5 in. / 448 pgs / 14 color 319 b&w / 5 duotone. Publication Date: 3/1/2007 List Price: US $240.00

  The Museum of Modern Art, New York The History of Photography Fifth Edition Since its first publication in 1937, this lucid and scholarly chronicle of the history of photography has been hailed as the classic work on the subject. No other book and no other author have managed to relate the aesthetic evolution of the art of photography to its technical innovations with such an absorbing combination of clarity, scholarship and enthusiasm. Through more than 300 works by such master photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy O'Sullivan, Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugène Atget, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, Minor White, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, author Beaumont Newhall presents a fascinating, comprehensive study of the significant trends and developments in the medium since the first photographs were made in 1839. New selections added to the fifth edition include photographs made in color, from hand-tinted . . . . [see book details]

  By Beaumont Newhall. Pbk, 8 x 11 in. / 320 pgs / 17 color / 287 duotone. Publication Date: 1/31/2010 List Price: US $39.95

  Aperture In Our Own Image 20th Anniversary Edition Twenty years ago, before the era of digital cameras, cell phones and the internet, Fred Ritchin outlined many of the ways in which the digital age would transform society. In Our Own Image was the first book to address the coming revolution in photography, and asked pointed questions that are increasingly relevant today, including whether democracy can survive the media's facile use of digital means. By the time a second edition was published in 1999, many of Ritchin's predictions had come true. Computer embellishment of imagery had become a staple in the media and had significantly diminished photography's role as a credible witness: Newsday had published the first "future" news photograph of two feuding ice skaters as they would meet the next day, and on its cover, Time magazine darkened and blurred an image of O.J. Simpson in order to lift "a common police mug shot to the level of art, . . . . [see book details]

  By Fred Ritchin. Pbk, 6.5 x 9.25 in. / 144 pgs / 38 b&w. Publication Date: 12/31/2010 List Price: US $16.95

  Aperture Crisis of the Real Writings on Photography We are pleased to announce Aperture's reissue of Crisis of the Real, Andy Grundberg's classic collection of writings on photography—an essential work for anyone seeking clarity and insight into photography's place in today's world. Known internationally for his articles in The New York Times and other publications, Andy Grundberg has been one of the most respected and widely read voices in photography and the visual arts for nearly 30 years. His interpretations and critical opinions have helped shape the broad understanding of photography's complex roles in art and the media. Over the course of the 50 essays and articles in this authoritative collection, Grundberg questions the nature of photography and how we perceive it, reevaluates some of the great photographers of our time and brings into focus the major debates in photography at the end of the twentieth century. Although some essays were originally written more than 30 years ago, the . . . . [see book details]

  By Andy Grundberg. Pbk, 6.5 x 9 in. / 292 pgs / 44 b&w. Publication Date: 4/30/2010 List Price: US $19.95

  The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Photographer's Eye 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. . . . . [see book details]

  By John Szarkowski. Paperback, 8.5 x 9 in. / 156 pgs / 173 duotone. Publication Date: 3/1/2007 List Price: US $24.95