CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 10/14/2015

Photography Is Magic

In her introduction to Photography is Magic, Charlotte Cotton's new, must-have survey of contemporary art photography (published by Aperture), Cotton writes, "Close-up magic—the kind of intimate, right-in-front-of-you sleight of hand that brings pure wonder and delight—is the inspiration for this book, which gathers the work and words of more than 80 artists operating in the related field of photographic magic. The idea that close-up magic has bearing on the critical mass of contemporary photographic art centers on their shared capacity to recalibrate established creative forms in ways that relate to our collective present: to conjure imaginative and open-ended experiences and trains of thought in the viewer. Magic in both realms is a multisensory experience that calls—instantaneously without our consciously knowing it—upon our capacity to script our own sense of visual reality." Featured image is Sara Cwynar's "Girl From Contact Sheet 2 (Darkroom Manual)" (2014).