Output details

Reading Photography: A sourcebook of critical texts 1921–2000

Part of Lund Humphries’s ‘Art in Context’ series, Reading Photography brings together over 100 extracts from writings on a broad range of themes to critically reflect on the subject of photography. Each chapter offers a set of considerations which relate to the reading of photography within a critical and cultural framework. In addition to key discussions around photography’s relationship to art and commercial practices, and indeed, within established genres, the research develops other contemporary themes central to discussions within photography and art, such as ‘The Idea of the Everyday’ which raises questions about the value and significance of the commonplace. Developing the analysis of photography’s use as a tool of control through portraiture, ‘Observations of the ‘Other’’ considers the work of contemporary non-Western photographers in a post-colonial context.

A large selection of these essays have not been reproduced previously other than in their original context. Within the eighteen-chapter book, I contributed a main introduction, chapter and essay introductions. The selection of essays entailed the compiling and analysis of critical debates each offering an angle on the topic. The intertwining of practice and theoretical and critical modes of analysis was significant to the selection process. For example, the chapter ‘Photography and the City’ offers a theorization of the representation of the city by Clarke and Stallabrass, while Meskimmon develops the topic of the city specifically in relation to female artists exploring gender, space and representation in their work. The chapter also includes essays analysing the works of photographers such as Struth, Araki, and Weegee.

Each essay introduction offers a clear contextualisation of the extract, providing a critical summary of the essay as a whole and explaining its relevance to the subject under discussion; while chapter introductions provide a critical overview of each topic, underscoring how these debates are to be framed.