A little study of photography

“Making photographs has to be, then, a personal matter; when it is not, the results are not persuasive. Only the artist’s presence in the work can convince us that its affirmation resulted from and has been tested by human experience.” (Robert Adams)

I recently put together an independent study for a group of students at Deep Springs College, who were interested in learning about photography. The title of the course is a riff on Walter Benjamin’s seminal article, “A Little History of Photography.” And I organized the curriculum based on a claim in The Cruel Radiance (University of Chicago Press, 2010) that the early canon of photography criticism was antagonistic because the critics themselves were not photographers. This assertion implies that practicing photography informs how it is theorized. With this in mind, I developed a seven-week seminar that moved between theory and practice. The students used their cell phones to make pictures, and the readings are listed below with active links to some of the photographers that we considered.

1

Robert Adams, Beauty in Photography (2005) Susie Linfield, “A Little History of Photography Criticism” in The Cruel Radiance (2010) Laura Wexler, “The Purloined Image” in Photography and the Optical Unconscious (2020)

Saul Leiter, Black and White Mark Power, The Shipping Forecast LaToya Ruby Frazier, The Notion of Family

2

Critique

3

Ruth Behar, “The Vulnerable Observer” in The Vulnerable Observer (1996) Miles Orvell, “Versions of the Self” in American Photography (2003) Kaja Silverman, “The Second Coming” in The Miracle of Analogy (2015)

Graciela Iturbide, Frida’s Bathroom Susan Lipper, Grapvine Rania Matar, Ordinary Lives

4

Critique

5

Tina Di Carlo, “Archival Measures: Photography Collections in the New Media Age” Gil Pasternak, “Popular Photography Cultures in Photography Studies” Ben Burbridge, “Paradise Lost: Exhibitionism and the Work of Nan Goldin”

Masahisa Fukase, Ravens Carrie Mae Weems, Lousiana Project Magdalena Wywrot, Pestka

6

Critique

7

Presentation of photography projects

• Artist statement

• Project statement

• 10 photographs

  
  

Some photographers…