What Photography Is

ISBN-13: 9780415995689 / Angielski / Twarda / 2011 / 240 str.

Elkins James

Opis

In What Photography Is, James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner as he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is. In the course of an extended imaginary dialogue with Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida, Elkins argues that photography is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to show us things that we do not want or need to see--and also about pain in so far as extremely powerful images that can sear into our consciousness permanently. Extensively illustrated with a surprising range of images, the book demonstrates that what makes photography uniquely powerful is its ability to express the difficulty--physical, psychological, emotional, and aesthetic--of the act of seeing.

Spis treści

Preface  1. Writing  2. Selenite, Ice, Salt  3. From the Green River to the Brunswick Peninsula  4. A Drop of Water, World Trade Center Dust  5. The Rapatronic Camera  6. Lingqi