Photography: A Critical Introduction (5^th Ed.)

Photography: A Critical Introduction was the first introductory textbook to examine key debates in photographic theory and place them in their social and political contexts, and is now established as one of the leading textbooks in its field. Written especially for students in higher education and for introductory college courses, this fully revised edition provides a coherent introduction to the nature of photographic seeing.

Individual chapters cover:

• Key debates in photographic theory and history
• Documentary photography and photojournalism
• Personal and popular photography
• Photography and the human body
• Photography and commodity culture
• Photography as art

This revised and updated fifth edition includes:

• New case studies on topics such as: materialism and embodiment, the commodification of human experience, and an extended discussion of landscape as genre.
• 98 photographs and images, featuring work from: Bill Brandt, Susan Derges, Rineke Dijkstra, Fran Herbello, Hannah Höch, Karen Knorr, Dorothea Lange, Chrystel Lebas, Susan Meiselas, Lee Miller, Martin Parr, Ingrid Pollard, Jacob Riis, Alexander Rodchenko, Andres Serrano, Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall.
• Fully updated resource information, including guides to public archives and useful websites.
• A full glossary of terms and a comprehensive bibliography.

Contributors: Michelle Henning, Patricia Holland, Derrick Price, Anandi Ramamurthy and Liz Wells.

Introduction 1. Thinking About Photography: Debates, Historically and Now 2. Surveyors and Surveyed: Photography Out and About 3. 'Sweet it is to Scan...': Personal Photographs and Popular Photography 4. The Subject as Object: Photography and the Human Body 5. Spectacles and Illusions: Photography and Commodity Culture 6. On and Beyond the White Walls: Photography as Art Glossary Photography archives Bibliography Index

Liz Wells is Professor in Photographic Culture in the Faculty of Arts, University of Plymouth.