Light matters : writings on photography / Vicki Goldberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldberg, Vicki.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Photography.

Photographic criticism.

Physical Description:

247 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Aperture, [2005]

Summary:

Vicki Goldberg is one of the leading voices in photography criticism today. Her cogent and perceptive writings have been regularly featured in such respected national publications as the New York Times, American Photo, and Vanity Fair. Light Matters: Writings on Photography gathers for the first time a selection of this remarkable author's essays and criticism, culled from her writings published over the past twenty-five years.

Goldberg's take on photography is both insightful and expansive: her subjects range from pop icons to the imagery of death, from the commercial use of journalistic images to the onslaught of sexual content in art photography. She casts new light on the work of the medium's established masters, among them Walker Evans, Brassai, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus. And she writes with equal acuity about contemporary trailblazers such as Eleanor Antin, Peter Hujar, and Martin Parr. Goldberg also tackles provocative issues confronting the medium, such as the use of photography in defining racial and cultural identity and the camera's powerful position in an increasingly commodified society. Together, the twenty-seven essays in this volume explore the defining role of photography in our lives and in our world.

Dismissing cliches and deftly negotiating photography's many diverging paths, Goldberg demonstrates how to consider not just photographic images themselves, but their impact, and the meaning of that impact. Light Matters showcases a writer of great intelligence, discernment, and candor, whose understanding of this multifarious and evolving medium is unsurpassed.

Contents:

A quarter century of photography

Ansel Adams

Eleanor Antin

Diane Arbus

Richard Avedon

Brassaï

Walker Evans

Chauncey Hare

Peter Hujar

Josef Koudelka

Jacques Henri Lartigue

Reiner Leist

Daido Moriyama

Suzanne Opton

Martin Parr

Herb Ritts

Bastienne Schmidt

Joel Sternfeld

Weegee

Benetton and the uses of tragedy

Getting, spending, and photography

Documenting poverty

Reflections in black

A dogged attempt at history

The body of our desire

Lee Friedlander's nudes

Sex again

Death takes a holiday, sort of.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 236-237) and index.

ISBN:

1931788634

OCLC:

56371451