The Photograph

Front Cover
Oxford University Press, 1997 - Art - 247 pages
How do we read a photograph? In this rich and fascinating work, Graham Clarke gives a clear and incisive account of the photograph's historical development, and elucidates the insights of the most engaging thinkers on the subject, such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. From the first misty "heliograph" taken by Joseph Nicephore Niepce in 1826 to the classic compositions of Cartier-Bresson and Alfred Steiglitz and the striking postmodern strategies of Robert Mapplethorpe, Clarke provides a groundbreaking examination of photography's main subject areas--landscape, the city, portraiture, the body, and reportage--as well as a detailed analysis of exemplary images in terms of their cultural and ideological contexts. With over 130 illustrations, The Photograph offers a series of discussions of major themes and genres providing an up-to-date introduction to the history of photography and creating a record of the most dazzling, penetrating, and pervasive images of our time.
 

Contents

Introduction
7
What is a Photograph?
11
How Do We Read a Photograph?
27
Photography and the Nineteenth Century
41
Landscape in Photography
55
The City in Photography
75
The Portrait in Photography ΙΟΙ Chapter 7 The Body in Photography
123
Documentary Photography
145
The Photograph Manipulated
187
The Cabinet of Infinite Curiosities
207
Notes
222
List of Illustrations
226
Bibliographic Essay
230
Timeline
234
Glossary
238
Index
240

The Photograph as Fine Art
167

Common terms and phrases

About the author (1997)

Graham Clarke is Reader in Literary & Image Studies, University of Kent, Canterbury. His publications include The American City: Literary & Cultural Perspectives (St Martin's Press, 1988), and The Portrait in Photography (Reaktion Books, 1992). He is on the advisory board of the journal History of Photography and the editorial board of Journal of American Studies (Cambridge).

Bibliographic information