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Photography in Print: Writings from 1816 to the Present
This useful collection includes over a century of the very best writing on photography. Vicki Goldberg has brought together more than 75 essays and excerpts that cover a vast and provocative range of topics. We have the first-hand accounts of photographers, from Fox Talbot to Alfred Stieglitz to Ansel Adams, and the thoughts of leading critics and philosophers, from Baudelaire to George Bernard Shaw to Susan Sontag. Some of the pieces illuminate important aspects of photographic history; others give unique insights in particular photographers; and some are just for fun. Together, they offer a lively approach to the history, art, and philosophy of photography.
570 pages, Paperback
First published May 22, 1981
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About the author
Vicki Goldberg
51 books8 followersVictoria Hesse Goldberg was an American photography critic, author, and photo historian based in New Hampshire, United States. She has written books and articles on photography and its social history.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 17, 2021
Every single essay in this book is vitally important to the history of photographic art, and provides an excellent introduction to the principle thinkers interested in photography, and it’s place in the history of Western Representation.
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May 7, 20231981 review (free copy) at the NYRB: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1981...
Excerpt:
" . . . including many of the best shorter writings about photography from its first days to now. As well as the expected, essential opinions of everyone from Fox Talbot to Sontag, there are such out-of-the-way but closely relevant pieces as a reminiscence by Nadar which suggests that Balzac preempted Benjamin’s idea about photographs robbing an object of its aura; a stunningly dull critique written by one Cuthbert Bode in 1855 which shows that photography has always generated, as well as a special enthusiasm, a special intensity of patronizing scorn; and a brilliantly turned Hiawatha-meter poem by that fervent shutterbug Lewis Carroll.
From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
Not at our libraries. ZIP?
Excerpt:
" . . . including many of the best shorter writings about photography from its first days to now. As well as the expected, essential opinions of everyone from Fox Talbot to Sontag, there are such out-of-the-way but closely relevant pieces as a reminiscence by Nadar which suggests that Balzac preempted Benjamin’s idea about photographs robbing an object of its aura; a stunningly dull critique written by one Cuthbert Bode in 1855 which shows that photography has always generated, as well as a special enthusiasm, a special intensity of patronizing scorn; and a brilliantly turned Hiawatha-meter poem by that fervent shutterbug Lewis Carroll.
From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood
Made of sliding, folding rosewood;
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
Not at our libraries. ZIP?
July 5, 2009
Still reading..
I'm mostly interested in the "philosophical" questions surrounding photo. The old haggard questions of art/not art, should we imitate painters, etc.. are boring. It's striking to me how wrapped up so many authors are in their own moment, lacking the ability to enjoy without qualification, and compelled to judge and categorize. Shame.
So for my interests, about 1/4 of the contents are relevant.. That 1/4 is quite decent though.
It also contains discussions and opinions that are completely new to me, they may be trifling, but they are still.. amusing.
I'm mostly interested in the "philosophical" questions surrounding photo. The old haggard questions of art/not art, should we imitate painters, etc.. are boring. It's striking to me how wrapped up so many authors are in their own moment, lacking the ability to enjoy without qualification, and compelled to judge and categorize. Shame.
So for my interests, about 1/4 of the contents are relevant.. That 1/4 is quite decent though.
It also contains discussions and opinions that are completely new to me, they may be trifling, but they are still.. amusing.
June 17, 2018
While some of the writing is archaic, there are still many thought-provoking and informative essays in here. Filled with great quotes for MFA thesis papers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews