The Bookshelf #18 - A History of Photography - Taschen
A History of Photography from 1839 to The Present
Taschen
Available on Amazon from £24.00
This is the first book I have looked at in my bookshelf series in the last few weeks that I have actually paid full price for. It's a very good book, but there are a few omissions that really surprised me.Let’s look at the good stuff. This is a beautiful book, the cover really pops and there is a whole wealth of information within its pages.
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There are some lovely images contained within it; some of them are familiar, some of them less so. A lot of them are historically important images, curated to show the development of photography and the techniques that have shaped the way we use cameras.
It is worth mentioning that this is a lot of book squeezed into a relatively small format. That makes it fantastic value and easy to keep on the shelf, but occasionally I found myself wishing some of the photographs had been given more room to breathe.
There is another caveat with the title. “From 1839 to the Present” is stretching things a little now. Contemporary and digital photography receive comparatively little attention, so if you want a history that brings you properly through the digital revolution, smartphones and contemporary photographic practice, this isn’t really it.It touches on many of the photographers that you would expect to encounter. They get a mention or two, but sometimes not in as much detail as you would like there to be!
If you’re studying GCSE or A-Level photography, then this is definitely a useful book for you to own. It doesn’t cover photographers in great depth, but it will give you enough of an overview and enough exposure to their work that you'll have plenty of photographers, movements and ideas to investigate further, especially for some of the more in-depth writing and research that you need to do for A-Level.It’s not going to give you everything, but it will give you plenty of jumping-off points for your research. If there’s not a copy in your school library, ask them to get one. It’s reasonably priced and it’s going to be useful for you and the other people on your course.
One thing that is worth understanding before buying it is that the book is based around the collection of the George Eastman Museum, rather than being an attempt to select freely from the entire history of photography. That probably explains some of the omissions that bothered me, although it doesn’t necessarily make them any less noticeable.
My issue with this book is that it mentions Ansel Adams but only uses three of his images. It mentions Cartier-Bresson, but only shows one of his images. There isn’t a single mention of William Eggleston, who is often credited with making colour photography ‘acceptable’ to the fine art world.
I know this is an opinion, but I think this makes him historically significant as a photographer! I suppose this is why the book is called “A History of Photography” as opposed to “A Complete History of Photography”.
Perhaps the book is at its best when you stop treating it as a collection of famous photographers and start looking at it as a history of the medium itself. Processes change, technology changes and ideas about what photography should be change with them.I’m not going to get bogged down by these things, but they’re worthy of mention.
I still think this is a great book.This isn’t a book that you pick up and sit down to read with a cup of tea and a biscuit (or twenty). It’s very much a reference book, and it’s one that I will read, but not all in one go. I believe that if you’re going to understand something you’re doing, then you need to understand its history, and this book has got most of that covered.
I suppose the final question, then, is to ask myself: now that I know these things about this book, would I still buy it again?The answer… Yes. Absolutely!
A History of Photography is available to buy from Amazon from £24.00
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