Photography: A Cultural History

This groundbreaking survey of international photography, which examines the discipline across the full range of its uses by both professionals and amateurs, has been expanded and brought up to date for this second edition. Each of the eight chapters takes a period of up to forty years and examines the medium through the lenses of art, science, social science, travel, war, fashion, the mass media and individual practitioners. These broad topics complement a fully developed cultural context whose emphasis is more on key ideas than individuals. The author also pays close attention to how contemporary practitioners, commentators and beholders have talked about specific works, the nature of photography nd the photographer's changing role in society. It includes works from many contemporary photographers including Edward Burtynsky, Wendy Ewald, Anna Gaskell, Paul Graham, Bill Henson, Alfredo Jaar, Boris Mikhailov, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Andreas Serrano and Thomas Struth; incorporates new research into the work of Roger Fenton; includes a section on fashion photography in the late twentieth century; discussion on the rise of the constructed narrative; and, new material on the Soviet era, benefitting from the post-1989 opening of the Soviet archives. A new final chapter, "Into the New Millennium", examining phenomena such as the escalation of vernacular photography through camera phones and photoblogs, as well as recent changes in feminist photography, and photography in the Arab world. Consideration of how modern society envisions itself in relation to war and war imagery. It contains a focus box on photographers in contemporary China, new timeline, extended glossary and bibliography.