Monday, April 30, 2007

John Szarkowski and The Photographer's Eye


Since a few posts back where I wrote of Stephen Shore’s The Nature of Photographs it has come to my attention that the Museum of Modern Art has reprinted John Szarkowski’s beautiful book on photographic perception The Photographer’s Eye.

The book, for those not familiar, breaks down our “understanding” of photographs into: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time and Vantage Point. Szarkowski uses a wealth of known and unknown images to illustrate each idea. Stephen Shore cites the lessons of The Photographer’s Eye in the shaping his own book and thus they make nice companions.

I don’t have much to say about this title beyond it should be required reading for the experienced and inexperienced. This reprint will provide access to another generation of photographers to one of his earliest and most important works.
It is published both in paperback and hardcover and in editions translated into other languages.

Book Available Here