And now, for the first time in book form, Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde charts this full-blown rebellion of contemporary photographers against the advent of digital technology and their reversion to photographic methods used in the nineteenth century.".

From the beginning, abstraction has been intrinsic to photography, and its persistent popularity reveals much about the medium. Now available in an affordable paperback edition, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography is the first book in English to document this phenomenon and to put it into historical context, while also examining the diverse approaches thriving within contemporary photography. Author Lyle Rexer examines abstraction at pivotal moments, starting with the inception of photography, when many of the pioneers believed the camera might reveal other aspects of reality. The Edge of Vision traces subsequent explorations--from the Photo-Secessionists, who emphasized process and emotional expression over observed reality, to Modernist and Surrealist experiments. In the decades to follow, in particular from the 1950s through the 1980s, a multitude of photographers--Edward Weston, Aaron Siskind, Barbara Kasten, Ellen Carey and James Welling among them--took up abstraction from a variety of positions. Finally, Rexer explores the influence the history of abstraction exerts on contemporary thinking about the medium. Many contemporary artists--most prominently Penelope Umbrico, Michael Flomen, and Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin--reject classic definitions of photography's documentary dimension in favor of other conceptually inflected possibilities, somewhere between painting and sculpture, that include the manipulation of process and printing. In addition to Rexer's engagingly written and richly illustrated history, this volume includes a selection of primary texts from and interviews with key practitioners and critics, such as Alvin Langdon Coburn, László Moholy-Nagy, Gottfried Jägger, Silvio Wolf and Walead Beshty.

Recent decades have seen a flourishing interest in and speculation about the origins of photography. Spurred by rediscoveries of ‘first’ photographs and proclamations of photography’s death in the digital age, scholars have been rethinking who and what invented the medium. Photography and Its Origins reflects on this interest in photography’s beginnings by reframing it in critical and specifically historiographical terms. How and why do we write about the origins of the medium? Whom or what do we rely on to construct those narratives? What’s at stake in choosing to tell stories of photography’s genesis in one way or another? And what kind of work can those stories do? Edited by Tanya Sheehan and Andrés Mario Zervigón, this collection of 16 original essays, illustrated with 32 colour images, showcases prominent and emerging voices in the field of photography studies. Their research cuts across disciplines and methodologies, shedding new light on old questions about histories and their writing. Photography and Its Origins will serve as a valuable resource for students and scholars in art history, visual and media studies, and the history of science and technology.

"The definitive textbook for students and professionals studying the art of handmade photographic prints, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes, 3e brings students, hobbyists, and professionals up to date with the latest techniques and artists." -- Provided by publisher.

Based on the highly successful course at the School of Visual Arts developed by the author, this book provides a comprehensive approach to the critical understanding of photography through an in-depth discussion of fifteen photographs and their contexts – historical, generic, biographical and aesthetic. This book presents an intensive course in looking at photographs, open to undergraduates and general audiences alike. Rexer argues that by concentrating on fifteen carefully chosen works it is possible to understand the history, development and contemporary situation of photography. Looking to images by photographers such as Roland Fischer, Nancy Rexroth and Ernest Cole, The Critical Eye is the only book to address the totality of issues involved in photography, from authorial self-consciousness to the role of the audience. Its subjects are not limited to art photography but include vernacular images, commercial genres and anthropology. With every chapter it seeks to link the history of photography to current practice. This highly illustrated and beautiful book provides a much-needed introduction to image production.

The photographs presented in the book, made with the ambrotype process - resulting in one-of-a-kind images captured on glass - represent a new stage in photography, the so-called "antiquarian avant-garde," that is, the radical rediscovery of obsolete photographic techniques. Sergei Romanov goes further than any other contemporary photographer in pushing his medium into imagistic territory never approached before, because he has ignored all the rules: he just doesn't care about good taste, or perfect craftsmanship, or total control, or conceptual strategies. He is deeply convinced that what is most important (and most often missing in today's photography) is an ineffable spirit - and he will risk everything to evoke it. When he succeeds, his images possess the uncanny physical presence of the living body, the primal magnetism of sexuality, and the hypnotic involvement of an hallucination. A waking dream. Sergei Romanov (b. 1970) is one of Russia's preeminent photographers. Entirely self-taught, Romanov produces distinctive ambrotype images featuring hyper-stylized female nudes and other subjects. Highly expressive in their dark surrealism, these staged photographs nod to Sally Mann on the one hand and fashion photographers such as Helmut Newton, Sarah Moon, and Ellen von Unwerth on the other. Romanov's work is included in the permanent collections of the Musei Moskvy, Kunstmuseum Luzern, and the San Diego Museum of Art, as well as in a number of private collections, including that of Juan Antonio Pérez Simón.

Photography is not dying and has not died. It has been an ever-changing medium since its earliest days, and while near-obsession with the technology of the day may have defined photography over the course of its existence, photography is so much more than hardware and software. Photography is communication, whether chemical or digital, tangible or ephemeral in form. Photography Beyond Technique is a compelling selection of essays and images that reveal the thoughts and methods of some of today’s most exciting contemporary photographers. These artists employ alternative, historical, or handmade processes and techniques, and they share a comprehensive view of the medium: that the choice of photographic process is just as important as the selection of subjects. While other books concentrate solely on process, or theory, or artistic intent, none focus on photography in which these decisions are considered inseparable. These 20 essays, originally presented at the annual F295 symposium and seminar series, provide a thought-provoking read for anyone interested in photography as an art form and as a medium through which to view the world. Includes: "Looking Backward, Seeing Forward: Reframing Visual History" by Robert Hirsch "Mystery, Memory, and Narrative" by Martha Casanave "Finding Confidence: Combining Process with Purpose" by Mark Osterman "Photograph, Material, and Metaphor" by Jerry Spagnoli

Provides new definitions of the Gothic in a variety of artistic contexts Explores a range of Gothic from architecture through literature to music and the technological artsProvides an opportunity to hear new thinking from established scholars as well as showcasing work by new scholarsHighlights new definitions of the Gothic from a wide variety of perspectivesThe Gothic in all its artistic forms and ramifications is traced from the medieval to the twenty-first century. From architecture, painting and sculpture through music, ballet, opera and dance to installation art and the graphic novel, each of the 33 chapters reflects on and weighs in on the ways in which the Gothic is taken up in the art forms and modes under examination. An Introduction discusses Gothic as a changing cultural form across the centuries with deep psychological roots. This is followed by sections on: architectural arts; the visual arts; music and the performance arts; the literary arts; and media and cultural arts.

Over the past decade, historical studies of photography have embraced a variety of cultural and disciplinary approaches to the medium, while shedding light on non-Western, vernacular, and "other" photographic practices outside the Euro-American canon. Photography, History, Difference brings together an international group of scholars to reflect on contemporary efforts to take a different approach to photography and its histories. What are the benefits and challenges of writing a consolidated, global history of photography? How do they compare with those of producing more circumscribed regional or thematic histories? In what ways does the recent emphasis on geographic and national specificity encourage or exclude attention to other forms of difference, such as race, class, gender, and sexuality? Do studies of "other" photographies ultimately necessitate the adoption of nontraditional methodologies, or are there contexts in which such differentiation can be intellectually unproductive and politically suspect? The contributors to the volume explore these and other questions through historical case studies; interpretive surveys of recent historiography, criticism, and museum practices; and creative proposals to rethink the connections between photography, history, and difference. A thought-provoking collection of essays that represents new ways of thinking about photography and its histories. It will appeal to a broad readership among those interested in art history, visual culture, media studies, and social history.