Product Description

From the first misty `heliograph' taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 to the classic compositions of Cartier-Bresson and Alfred Steiglitz, to the striking postmodern strategies of Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman and Victor Burgin, the history of photography is a record of dazzling and penetrating images. But photographs are also the most pervasive images of our time, infinite in their capacity to record and make moments significant, granting status to everything they touch. So how do we read a photograph? In a series of brilliant discussions of major themes and genres, Graham Clarke gives a clear and incisive account of the photograph's historical development, and elucidates the insights of the most interesting thinkers on the subject such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. At the heart of the book is his ground-breaking examination of the main subject areas - landscape, the city, portraiture, the body, and reportage - and his detailed analysis of exemplary images in terms of their cultural and ideological contexts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11751 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 248 pages

Customer Reviews

An ideal approach...
I used this book as part of a photography module on my degree and found it a very useful and clear cut.

The ideas, advice and conventions in the book will help any photogrophy student as well as many artists on their way to creating well thought out imagery.

Clarkes accessable masterpiece!
Graham Clarke has given the kind of theoratical advice which will help any Photography student through the hard times a marvelous read which is easy to follow and explains the codes and conventions in which we are all governed by.. A must for all photographers!

Scholarly yet accessible, part history and part theory
I've read a lot of technical, 'how to' photography books; I've also read lots of books on composition and lighting. I am a very keen amateur photographer and I understand the techhnical bits, I was more interested in the meanings and interpretations of photographs. But I was always left wanting for a book that gave you just a little bit more than 'how to' ...

If you've ever felt the same way, there's a good chance that Clarke's book is the one that you are looking for. This could easily be used as a reference work for an undergrad degree (if not post-grad), yet it's always an easy read and interesting to pick up and browse a particular section, or just flick through the many interesting and high quality pictures. This last is something worth emphasising - this is a quality book on thick, quality paper and the picture reproduction is great.

It's just as scholarly as anything by Sontag or Barthes, but written in a much more accessible way:

"In a world dominated by visual images the photograph has become almost invisible. We take photographs, look at them endlessly, and carry them around with us so that their currency is pervasive. They are one of the most common of objects that change hands every day. And yet such a common status belies their underlying complexity and difficulty; for we are always left with the primary and shifting question: what precisely is a photograph?"

Just so you get an idea of what this book contains, the contents is as follows.

1. What is a photograph?
2. How do we read a photograph?
3. Photography and the nineteenth century
4. Landscape in photography
5. The city in photography
6. The portrait in photography
7. The body in photography
8. Documentary photography
9. The photograph as fine art
10. The photograph manipulated
11. The Cabinet of Infinite Curiosities