Sunday 8 February 2015

Assignment 4 - most useful books

Please refer to the resource page of my blog for complete references.

Feedback from my tutor recommended that I make a note of the most useful books I used/read during this assignment, so here it is:


Lets start with the classics:


     On Photography by Susan Sontag


     Ways of Seeing by John Berger

     Image Music Text by Roland Barthes


These books were undoubtedly useful because they yielded quotes for my review, lets face it, if you write about anything related to photography it would be rude not to reference these authors at least once.


When I first started my degree, these books (specifically these books) were very scary - I did not mange to read any of them cover to cover on my first try, probably not on my second try either... Now they are well thumbed and normally one of them goes on holiday with me for a refresher read - does this make me sad, enlightened or brainwashed?




The Ontology of the Photographic Image by Andre Bazin
I fell for Bazin at the very beginning of the course, in part this was because of the twisting and warping that his work was given by Walton - ref my posts on 'The myth of objectivity'. Interestingly, Bazin and this article are regularly referenced in photographic literature; interestingly and also unsurprisingly Walton is not! 


The Cruel Radiance by Susie Linfield
When I first read about this book in the BJP I was curious because it appeared to fly contrary to popular opinion, in that, not only did we needed to look at war imagery but we also needed to digest and learn from it - it was meant to shock and to horrify and to knock us off our comfortable seats. But the book was/is so much more. 

These stories need to be told because they need to be heard. They need to be heard so that we do everything we can to prevent history repeating itself, as is so aptly referenced by Linfields in quoting Gilles Peress "we, the Eurpoeans, are floating in the vomit of our own past, refusing to confront our responsibility for non-interventions."[1] 



The British Journal of Photography
Interesting, contemporary and challenging, a great go-to reference magazine and website.
http://www.bjp-online.com/




References
[1] Linfield, S (2010) The Cruel Radiance. London. The University of Chicago Press Ltd p236

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