The attention drawn to the Kafka photo is one example of this. The reflections on the significance of Proust for Benjamin and Barthes are added as a third chapter to both parts of the book. Singularity, therefore, requires a relationship among the photograph, its referent or sitter, and the beholder of the image 8. According to Yacavone, for every viewer there is potentially one special portrait photograph of a loved one capable of initiating a redemptive process, which is the experiential singularity of that particular photograph Emerling is interested in reverse tendencies in history as well.
Moreover, photographs are not discussed and reproduced in chronological order. When he turns to the work of August Sander, he even claims: Only eleven of the forty images in the book date from after the mid-twentieth century, but the discussion focuses on theories from a more recent date, such as those of Jacques Derrida and Allan Sekula. MIT Press, 5.
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For a book that relates theory to history it is a pity that Emerling has not dated the quotation. The notes only refer to volumes or translated editions, resulting in the year Vicki Goldberg, ed. The addition of the years and would immediately have explained that the first view spoke to the era of modernism, while the latter marked the transition period toward postmodernism. Emerling and Yacavone clearly side with those who feel it was rather premature to herald the dominance of the digital and the death of photography, as some scholars did in the s.
While Emerling submits that the new digital culture has barely marked the end of photographic discourse 6 , Yacavone argues that the earlier views of Barthes and Benjamin are still relevant today and may provide important guidance for reflections on digital photography The recent proliferation of readers with key texts on photography testifies to the vibrancy of photography as a cultural discourse. At the same time, many of these readers overlap and cannot be easily read in their entirety due to their fragmented character. The same goes for the many edited volumes on photography with contributions from various authors.
Some of these volumes reveal that it can be a challenge for editors to weld together the cacophony of voices and perspectives. It is to be welcomed, therefore, that we are now witnessing the publication of more single-voiced books, especially if they succeed in adding new perspectives and insights on photography, as both Photography: Please send comments about this review to editor. A Publication of the College Art Association. Concise, critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies.
Recent Books in the Arts. Visit the CAA Website. Subscribe to CAA Newsletter. September 12, Jae Emerling Photography: In addition, the centrality of photography to contemporary art practice is addressed through the theoretical work of Allan Sekula, John Tagg, Rosalind Krauss, and Vilem Flusser.
The text also includes readings of many canonical photographers and exhibitions including: In addition, Emerling provides close readings of key passages from some major theoretical texts. These glosses come between the chapters and serve as a conceptual line that connects them.
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Roland Barthes, "The Rhetoric of the Image" Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others Michel Foucault on the archive Walter Benjamin, "Little History of Photography" Vilem Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography A substantial glossary of critical terms and names, as well as an extensive bibliography, make this the ideal book for courses on the history and theory of photography. Paperback , pages. Published January 29th by Routledge first published December 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
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Photography: History and Theory
Feb 08, Trevor rated it really liked it Shelves: I think this book is more a history of theory about photography, than a history of photography per se. Where this book is particularly good is in giving a series of glos I think this book is more a history of theory about photography, than a history of photography per se.
Where this book is particularly good is in giving a series of glosses on key texts from the history of the theory of photography. The book looks in quite some depth at many of the main problems of theory around the photographic image. I will need to read this book again — when I get time — but the key ideas I want to highlight here are around the indexical nature of the photographic image and the role of agency in photographic reproduction.
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Mostly because I think in some ways these might be the key ideas propelling theory around photographs. Many theorists have been convinced that what is most important about photographs is that they are indexes — in much the same way that we have an index finger, also known as a pointing-finger — an index points to something else. So, smoke is an index of fire, for example — you see one and you assume the other. No one says a photograph is what it is an image of.
Clearly, if you want to talk to your mum you would be better finding her, than finding a photograph of her. This indexical nature of the photograph is anything but simple. Not least because Peirce the American Saussure spoke about such systems of communication as not only being indexical, but also symbolic and iconic — hard not to think, then that photography might also be equally likely to be symbolic or iconic.
So, is photograph merely an aid to memory? Clearly not — I mean, it obviously impacts on our emotions in ways that have much more to do with how we have been acculturated than merely in reminding us of things from our past. Our grandparents as children, for instance. Perhaps we need to start by thinking about the most obvious thing about photographs — that they are eternally silent. This is particularly hard for us to do, I think. We are meaning making machines and as such we impose meaning on everything we see.
It is hard for us to hear the silence of photographs because of this endless chatter of our making meaning of those images.
This is the indexical role of photography brought to the fore. This kind of ordering of the world — what can and should be referred to as hegemonic — is the exercise of a particular kind of power. Where this is particularly interesting in this book is in its discussion of a photographic exhibition that is often referred to in these texts — The Family of Man exhibition. Not exactly one that was likely to challenge the existing power structures in place in our society. And I think this is where agency plays its part in photography.
Even those who consider photographs as unproblematic indexes — and it is hard not to see them as this on some level, you push the button and what is before you is frozen in time. You push the button, and unlike a pencil, the camera takes everything in seemingly without choice. But we are eternally fooled by the lie that the camera never lies. That what a camera shows is exactly what we would have seen if we were there to see it. Except, of course, what a camera actually shows is nothing at all like what we would have seen. It is a bit like what we would see if we closed one eye, kept insanely still and were looking through a hole and if we were somehow able to get time to stop.
There is also the fact that photographs are often taken because we are motivated to take them.
Rather even the most banal of photographs are an attempt at narrative. We are seeking in some way to tell the stories of our lives with them. And the danger here is that we tend to also believe our own stories — ignoring that these images are highly selective and generally highly positive presentations of us. When was the last time you took a photo of yourself on the toilet? We make images of what makes sense of the world - but that means fitting our images into an already existing way of understanding.
Sontag talks about this in her book On Photography when she quotes the Northern Irish at the start of the Troubles buying images of bombed bars and kids throwing stones or petrol bombs at armoured cars. They did this to show their kids in the future images of a world that barely seemed real to them and they were certain would seem utterly unreal to their children and grandchildren.
I believe more young people die from suicide than from car accidents or drug overdoses today in our unwarlike societies. You know, where you point your camera determines in large measure what you will see and what you will remember. Truth is a kind of story we tell and our photographs help us construct and tell that story - but it is a story.
Like I said, I am going to have to read this book again — it contains a wealth of information in very few pages and all illustrated with pictures along the way.