Tom Miles in his Photosmudger blog (click on my blog title to go there pronto) covers an explanation of John Berger's
'Ways of Seeing', Sontag's '
On Photography', Barthes' '
Camera Lucida' and '
Mythologies' (thank goodness, Barthes is VERY hard to read, even in translation !), also '
The Photograph' by Graham Clarke, whom I don't know, and '
Another Way of Telling' by John Berger and Jean Moir, which I'll try and track down at the library or second-hand book-shop.
This is not about reading, but understanding. What it is that a photograph, or a collection of photographs might mean, something about contextualisation, and so on . . . there's another Barthes book I'm ploughing through, '
Image Music Text' which is about narrative and seminotics.
'
The Photograph as Contemporary Art' by Charlotte Cotton discusses ways that photographers today engage with photography to make art. '
The History of Photography' by Beaumont Newhall gives a narrative (from an American point of view) of cross-influences by photographers on each other.
'
Photography - a Critical Introduction', edited by Liz Wells, is a reader on key debates in photographic theory. Very easy to read, but I find the ideas expressed need re-visiting, as they slip away unless I refer to them once in a while . . .
'
Inside the Photograph' by Peter C Bunnell is a collection of essays on about thirty specific twentieth-century photographers. Bunnell describes the book as 'about photographs, not theories'. Splendidly written, and a joy to leaf through, but not a true critical theory book, more like fun.
The reason I'm writing this post is that I found myself at the British Library's exhibition of early photographs (breath-taking, do go if you can) and bought Geoff Dyer's book (the very last copy, but I'm sure they'll get more in) '
The Ongoing Moment'. He says he doesn't take photos, and doesn't own a camera. He transposes (American) photographs of the past century into comparisons, and metaphors, and he explains the identity of symbols and motifs in particular photographs.
I'm only on page 21, and I'm hooked. After this, I may finish the Barthes books . . .
And, I was unlucky enough to be in Foyles, where I found an un-put-down-able copy of '
How to Read a Photograph' by Ian Jeffrey. I've been doing a lot of writing down of my own interpretation of contextualisation for images I'm researching, and this adds to my analysis of particular images. It also tells me about Kertesz, Moholy-Nagy, Eggleston, Bourke-White, Shore, Shomei and another hundred more. It gives a bit about them and then really specific contextualisation of particular, usually iconic, images . . .
Oh yes, these sorts of books are not just for fun, they are part of the understanding we should acquire on the way to becoming fully-rounded photographers, on our pre-degree practical photography course, here in London . . .
