Jpeg Book

Reframing Photography, the 560-page encyclopedic book on the subject includes everything about photography and then some. The book is for students, teachers and those in the self-taught orbit who want to do it themselves with a little help.

Like those instruction manuals that come with your new camera, the book is a little overwhelming ' although unlike those barely-English manuals, this book is written! There are fabulous essays written by the two authors, Rebekah Modrak and Bill Anthes, in each of the four subject parts, and they live up to the encyclopedia: dense, with history, science, and an interweaving of anecdotes of present day usage that reverberate with photography's past (my favorite is the comparison of Janet Cardiff's audio or video walks with the idea of the camera obscura, which works pretty well I think ' Cardiff does turn the world inside out and upside down, giving you her image, sounds, movement, which you must translate back into your own world to make sense of.)

The book has learned from the Internet's way of doing business. The horizontal layout includes two "sidebar" columns on each page, one to show images referred to in the text and the other for footnotes, which are like what you might get online in a hyper-linked word ' more useful information about the subject.

Reframing, like the encyclopedia or dictionary, is not a linear read. You want something about the how human vision works and what information about the eye and sight has meant for photography? There's a comprehensive essay by Rebekah Modrak that covers all that. Maybe you want to jump right in to the "how to" chapters. There's one on framing that deals with compositional issues. It will tell you how to make a pinhole camera, and steps you through the various cameras available and what they do. Other "how to" chapters deal with lighting, reproducing and printing and editing and evaluating.

Speaking of the Internet, the book has a large and very useful website with video tutorials with images and discussion from the book only not as dense.  And one great segment online is author Modrak's curated artist's gallery, with short documentary films of young contemporary practitioners pushing the boundaries of art and photography talking about their work.  (Among those featured are Artie Vierkant, a UPenn graduate, and Christobal Mendoza, who showed collaborative work recently at Grizzly Grizzly.)

One of the great things about the book ' which took seven years to write '  is its underlying premise ' that everybody uses photography now, and that for some artists, photography is one, but not the only tool in their studio. The authors, artist Rebekah Modrak and art historian Bill Anthes, understand that the future of fine art photography might look considerably different than a simple show of framed works hung on a wall. And because of that open interpretation of the field, the book embraces every possible use of the tool and discusses it with open mind. There seem to be no biases here, just a lot of great facts rounded up and some smart thoughtful commentary ' with lots of pictures.