What do you think?
Rate this book
See/Saw: Looking at Photographs
A lavishly illustrated history of photography in essays by the author of Otherwise Known as the Human Condition
See/Saw shows how photographs frame and change our perspective on the world. Taking in photographers from early in the last century to the present day―including artists such as Eugène Atget, Vivian Maier, Roy DeCarava, and Alex Webb―the celebrated writer Geoff Dyer offers a series of moving, witty, prescient, surprising, and intimate encounters with images.
Dyer has been writing about photography for thirty years, and this tour de force of visual scrutiny and stylistic flair gathers his lively, engaged criticism over the course of a decade. A rich addition to Dyer’s The Ongoing Moment , and heir to Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida , Susan Sontag’s On Photography , and John Berger’s Understanding a Photograph , See/Saw shows how a photograph can simultaneously record and invent the world, revealing a brilliant seer at work. It is a paean to art and art writing by one of the liveliest critics of our day.
See/Saw shows how photographs frame and change our perspective on the world. Taking in photographers from early in the last century to the present day―including artists such as Eugène Atget, Vivian Maier, Roy DeCarava, and Alex Webb―the celebrated writer Geoff Dyer offers a series of moving, witty, prescient, surprising, and intimate encounters with images.
Dyer has been writing about photography for thirty years, and this tour de force of visual scrutiny and stylistic flair gathers his lively, engaged criticism over the course of a decade. A rich addition to Dyer’s The Ongoing Moment , and heir to Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida , Susan Sontag’s On Photography , and John Berger’s Understanding a Photograph , See/Saw shows how a photograph can simultaneously record and invent the world, revealing a brilliant seer at work. It is a paean to art and art writing by one of the liveliest critics of our day.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
61 people are currently reading
439 people want to read
About the author
Geoff Dyer
139 books925 followersGeoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of a 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize, short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage (a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It (winner of the 2004 W. H. Smith Best Travel Book Award), and The Ongoing Moment (winner of the ICP Infinity Award for Writing on Photography), and Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker). His collection of essays, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012. He is also the editor of John Berger: Selected Essays and co-editor, with Margaret Sartor, of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney. A new book, Another Great Day at Sea, about life aboard the USS George H W Bush has just been published by Pantheon.
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 28, 2021
My thanks to both NetGalley and Graywolf Press for an advanced copy of this work.
Geoff Dyer draws on both his artistic sensibilities and his writing ability in his latest collection of essays See/Saw: Looking at Photographs 2010-2020. Mr. Dyer has chosen photographs from a a variety of skilled and unskilled photographers and eras. Along with the photo is an accompanying essay about what is seen, not seen, what the artist might have been trying to achieve, and what the results are to him. There are no right or wrong interpretations, Mr. Dyer only writes what he sees and feels, while giving a history of the photographer, a brief history of the photo and what might have lead to the photo being taken at that time. Some essays are straightforward, others go to places that only a skilled writer with knowledge both or art and history could go, expounding on things that would escape just a casual, or even a long study of the picture.
Not really criticism, not really a review. These essays are something more. Mr. Dyer one of my favorite authors who I first started reading wit his book on jazz But Beautiful, has a way of making something simple, grand and worthy of conversation and contemplation. A very sublime work.
Geoff Dyer draws on both his artistic sensibilities and his writing ability in his latest collection of essays See/Saw: Looking at Photographs 2010-2020. Mr. Dyer has chosen photographs from a a variety of skilled and unskilled photographers and eras. Along with the photo is an accompanying essay about what is seen, not seen, what the artist might have been trying to achieve, and what the results are to him. There are no right or wrong interpretations, Mr. Dyer only writes what he sees and feels, while giving a history of the photographer, a brief history of the photo and what might have lead to the photo being taken at that time. Some essays are straightforward, others go to places that only a skilled writer with knowledge both or art and history could go, expounding on things that would escape just a casual, or even a long study of the picture.
Not really criticism, not really a review. These essays are something more. Mr. Dyer one of my favorite authors who I first started reading wit his book on jazz But Beautiful, has a way of making something simple, grand and worthy of conversation and contemplation. A very sublime work.
November 2, 2023
2.5 Stars!
“A photograph is not the same as the thing photographed. But sometimes photographs make you conscious of that thing in a way that the thing itself never quite did. More precisely, they make you aware of things-stuff-about that thing of which you were either barely conscious or entirely oblivious.”
This is a bit slow to get going, I personally find it hard to get excited about blurry, obscure images of jazz musicians or lifeless portraits of random men, but this eventually warms up, some of the highlights include Peter Mitchell’s Scarecrows, Lynn Saville eerie and alluring work, as well as strong examples of Andreas Gursky and Tom Hunter.
I’m not sure how often he referenced the work of Diane Arbus, Edward Hopper, Garry Winogrand and the movie “Blow-Up”, but by the end of this it felt a bit like almost every photo was being compared to at least one of them. So this isn’t one of Dyer’s better collections, it’s definitely a mixed bag, but there are enough interesting and revealing essays to make this worth reading.
“A photograph is not the same as the thing photographed. But sometimes photographs make you conscious of that thing in a way that the thing itself never quite did. More precisely, they make you aware of things-stuff-about that thing of which you were either barely conscious or entirely oblivious.”
This is a bit slow to get going, I personally find it hard to get excited about blurry, obscure images of jazz musicians or lifeless portraits of random men, but this eventually warms up, some of the highlights include Peter Mitchell’s Scarecrows, Lynn Saville eerie and alluring work, as well as strong examples of Andreas Gursky and Tom Hunter.
I’m not sure how often he referenced the work of Diane Arbus, Edward Hopper, Garry Winogrand and the movie “Blow-Up”, but by the end of this it felt a bit like almost every photo was being compared to at least one of them. So this isn’t one of Dyer’s better collections, it’s definitely a mixed bag, but there are enough interesting and revealing essays to make this worth reading.
might-read
April 25, 2021Dyer has achieved that rare elevation as an essayist that allows him to demand all his published thoughts be preserved between hard covers. Some of the pieces here were initially written as columns, others are reviews or introductions to catalogues (he mourns a lone essay that could not be included because of difficulties of formatting). Many of the shorter observations are taken from a weekly series that he wrote for the New Republic magazine in which he chose a picture from that week’s papers – Serena Williams hitting her otherworldly forehand or Oscar Pistorius in tears in the dock – and riffed on its significance. Though the comprehensive nature of this enterprise means that some pieces inevitably feel more finished, or more attended to, than others, it’s a testament to Dyer’s seductive curiosity that even these slighter improvisations reward rereading.
October 11, 2021
The format did not work for me.
Too many too-brief chapters, too few images.
Also, Dyer's writing is often excessively "clever," almost twee.
The highlight was the satire of Michael Fried which made me laugh out loud.
Too many too-brief chapters, too few images.
Also, Dyer's writing is often excessively "clever," almost twee.
The highlight was the satire of Michael Fried which made me laugh out loud.
January 14, 2023
"The Ongoing Moment" is great, the kind of book that you finish and months later it hits you just how much it's changed how you think about things. You look for more books like "The Ongoing Moment" after reading "The Ongoing Moment."
(Sorry I think I'm still in weird Dylan parody 2nd person mode here. Gimme a sec. Okay.)
"See/Saw" is sort of a sequel to that book, but it doesn't quite has its magic. It's expressly a collection of Dyer's essays from a decade or so of writing about photography, many of which act as the introductions for the books they describe. Some of them are really striking and some of them left me cold-- it doesn't ever really become more than the sum of its parts. I bought it because it had pretty photos and was by Geoff Dyer! He got me interested in photography and he's got me to once again add like dozens of photo books to my "To Read" section (none of which I can find at the library, because Ohio is a miserable trash state). He also got me interested in John Berger, who rules. In fact, that might be the issue I had with "See/Saw"... it sometimes feel like Berger but without the fire. Ah heck, I'll probably come back to it in a year and love the whole damn thing.
Sorry I think "The Philosophy of Modern Song" has permanently poop-stained my brain.
(Sorry I think I'm still in weird Dylan parody 2nd person mode here. Gimme a sec. Okay.)
"See/Saw" is sort of a sequel to that book, but it doesn't quite has its magic. It's expressly a collection of Dyer's essays from a decade or so of writing about photography, many of which act as the introductions for the books they describe. Some of them are really striking and some of them left me cold-- it doesn't ever really become more than the sum of its parts. I bought it because it had pretty photos and was by Geoff Dyer! He got me interested in photography and he's got me to once again add like dozens of photo books to my "To Read" section (none of which I can find at the library, because Ohio is a miserable trash state). He also got me interested in John Berger, who rules. In fact, that might be the issue I had with "See/Saw"... it sometimes feel like Berger but without the fire. Ah heck, I'll probably come back to it in a year and love the whole damn thing.
Sorry I think "The Philosophy of Modern Song" has permanently poop-stained my brain.
August 12, 2021
Another brilliant book by Dyer and a great introduction to some exciting new photographers to further explore.
Hopefully Mr Dyer will begin writing again soon and overcome his self proclaimed endless procrastination, (I’ve now read and enjoyed every book he’s published).
Hopefully Mr Dyer will begin writing again soon and overcome his self proclaimed endless procrastination, (I’ve now read and enjoyed every book he’s published).
February 13, 2023
It’s cool to be able to do this, but looking up pictures for each photographer is just too much work. Almost zero payoff this way and I don’t have enough of a background in photography to appreciate it as it is.
Any other format and a lavish amount of photographs included would have made this a much much better book.
Any other format and a lavish amount of photographs included would have made this a much much better book.
July 31, 2024
As with all Dyer books one is often amazed by how lightly he wears his knowledge. The essays on Struth and Dasgupta are insightful and personal. This was further underlined in the wonderfully scabrous reading of Michael Fried. However, there are times when this lightness can feel a little repetitive; as though English reticence restrains sustained intellectual brilliance.
January 3, 2023
Really enjoyed , only criticism was plates in paperback not in colour , but Dyer always entertaining and informative
Read
April 29, 2025The essay making fun of Michael Fried's Why Photography Matters as Art as Never Before by itself is worth the price of admission.
May 25, 2021
I've reviewed this excellent book here.
December 4, 2024
Bland, obvious takes on bland, obvious (and overrated) photographers . . . Mike Brodie? Vivian Maier? Zoe Strauss? Nicholas Nixon? Did Dyer just, like, check the bestseller list for the Amazon photobook category? Obviously Gursky, DiCorcia, Ruff, et al. are amazing but Dyer says nothing of interest regarding their work in See/Saw's series of weird little belletristic pieces.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews