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Photography in America

Miles Orvell

Publication Date - 10 August 2015

ISBN: 9780199314225

336 pages
Paperback
7 x 10 inches

In Stock

Presents a chronological history of American photography within a thematic framework

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Table of Contents

Description

From scientific and documentary photography to the more purely aesthetic, the camera has become a part of American culture at every level. Photography in America explores the medium from a variety of angles--portrait, landscape, photojournalism, documentary, creative digital photography, and postmodern critique of the image--in order to help students understand its impact and meaning. Organized by genres and modes, this text traces the history of a medium considered central to American culture by examining its different uses, going back to its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century and looking forward to its future.

Features
About the Author(s)
Reviews

Features

An Introduction explores how to read photographs and how to write about them; subsequent chapters deal with the Civil War; social documentary and the city; art photography; street photography; family albums; photographing minority communities; photography and slavery; photography and the Harlem Renaissance; photography and celebrity; the image world; ghost photography; digital photography, photography and truth, etc.
"Techniques, Formats, and Equipment," "Lives in Photography," and "Movements and Trends" boxes throughout the text contain mini-essays on special topics like the Photo Booth, Aerial photography, the Leica camera, Alfred Stieglitz and Camera Work, Magnum Photos, Mapplethorpe and the Culture Wars, the Vietnam War and American Culture, and Motorcycles and the Open Road
170 key terms including Pinhole Photography, Precisionism, Stereograph, Zoopraxiscope, etc; listings of museums and websites; and a timeline help first-time photography students navigate the content and point to rich resources for expanded study
150 biographical sketches of photographers provide additional context and help students connect with the people behind the works discussed in the text, from Mathew Brady to Berenice Abbott and from Edward Weston to Garry Winogrand

About the Author(s)

Miles Orvell is Professor of English and American studies at Temple University; and affiliated Professor of Art History, Tyler School of Art (Temple). He is the prize-winning author of The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940, which appeared in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition in 2014. He is also the author of After the Machine: Visual Arts and the Erasing of Cultural Boundaries (1995); John Vachon's America: Photographs and Letters from the Depression to World War II (2003); and The Death and Life of Main Street: Small Towns in American Memory, Space, and Community (2012). Orvell served as Editor in Chief of the Encyclopedia of American Studies Online, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, from 2004 to 2011. In 2009, he received the Bode-Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement, awarded by the American Studies Association.

Reviews

"This text is accessible even to students who have little or no background in the field. I am especially fond of the combination of chronological and thematic styles."--Jillian M. Duquaine-Watson, University of Texas at Dallas

"Excellent illustrations. Great design. Sharp writing. Photography in America is an excellent textbook."--Marc Tasman, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

"Photography in America covers canonical photographers and movements. It is perfect for my needs."--Walter Metz, Southern Illinois University

Each chapter ends with Key Terms and Key Names.

Preface

Timeline

1. Introduction: Understanding Photography

I. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

2. Presenting the Self: The Portrait

3. Viewing the Landscape

4. Seeing and Believing: Photography as

Documentary

5. A Photographic Art 71

Stieglitz and Camera Work

--Neue Sachlichkeit

II. The Twentieth Century

6. Photography and Society

7. Photography as Life Narrative

8. African Americans and Photography

12 Million Black

Voices

III. Contemporary Photography

9. Contemporary Landscape Photography

10. Bearing Witness

11. Photography and the Image World

12. Photographing Fictions

13. Conclusion: Digital Truth

Biographies

Glossary

Museums and Websites

Index

Related Title

16 Ways of Looking at a Photograph: Contemporary Theories

Claire Raymond

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