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What Photography Is by James Elkins is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is What Photography Is about?

In What Photography Is , James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner as he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is . In the course of an extended imaginary dialogue with Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida , Elkins argues that photography is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to show us things that we do not want or need to see--and also about pain, because extremely powerful images can sear permanently into our consciousness. Extensively illustrated with a surprising range of images, the book demonstrates that what makes photography uniquely powerful is its ability to express the difficulty--physical, psychological, emotional, and aesthetic--of the act of seeing. ** Art Heritage Studies & Visual Arts Museum Photography General Museum, Heritage Studies & Visual Arts Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Preface 8 One: Writing 16 Two: Selenite, Ice, Salt 30 Three :From the Green River to the Brunswick Peninsula 60 Four: A Drop of Water, World Trade Center Dust 112 Five: The Rapatronic Camera 174 Six: Lingqi 192 Credits 236

Author

James Elkins

Publisher

Routledge

Published

2011

Language

EN

ISBN

9780415995696

Subjects

Art, Photography, Philosophy

Rating

3.6 / 5 (9 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14