About the Book
Founded in 1968, "Creative Camera" has been a forum for influencing the shape and direction of modern photography. This anthology of 50 texts and their images includes moments from the debate. There are contributors such as Roland Barthes, John Berger, Victor Burgin, Jo Spence and Helen Chadwick. Through its 30 year history, "Creative Camera" has played its part in the changing fortunes of photography. In the 1980s opinions became polarized and the boundaries of "pure photography" were radically reformed. This was the era of "New Colour" and "Constructed Photography" in practice and the new art history, feminism and post-structuralism featured in critical approaches to photography. In the 1990s, photography has become a favoured tool among young artists. Debates about identity, the body, and the impact of digital technlogy are important features of the "post-theory years". In particular, the ability of the new technology to stimulate photographic realism has revitalized the discussions about the relationship between photography, society, the media and "the real".
Table of Contents:
Photography and the mass media, John Szarkowski; the scandal of horror photography, Roland Barthes; letter from New York, Robert Frank; Brassai - talking about photography, interview by Tony Ray-Jones; in praise of the snapshot, Bill Jay; Erich Salomon - historian with a camera, Helmut Gernsheim; personal notes on dismantling the Don McCullin exhibition at the V&A Museum, Mark Haworth-Booth; picturing the end of empire - Cecil Beaton, David Alan Mellor; the Tate Gallery and photography, Colin Osman interviews Alan Bowness; modern photojournalism - the first years, Tim Gidal; "Thinking Photography" reviewed, Stevie Bezencenet; some sacred sites, Ian Jeffrey; letter - dictator and empiricists, Victor Burgin; flash suit, flash myth, an interview with Weegee's widow Wilma Wilcox, Murray Martin; revising femininity?, Susan Butler; current comment - Josef Koudelka, Mark Howarth-Booth; from today black and white is dead, Susan Butler; deja-vu - the rephotographic project, Ian Walker; past caring - an interview with Paul Graham; towards a moral pornography - Joel-Peter Witkin, Gerry Badger; a mirror to yourself - Helen Chadwick interviewed, Tom Evans; John Gossage's "The Pond", Robert Adams; beyond romance - Weston's landscapes, Lewis Baltz; "pilgrims", John Berger; Willie Doherty interviewed, Christopher Coppock; William Klein interviewed, David Brittain; between media and art, Charles Hagen; a book in the life of ... Jo Spence; true confessions - Cindy Sherman interviewed, David Brittain; Karen Knorr interviewed, David Brittain; snapshot from Bohemia, Pavel Buchler; body language, Jo Spence and David Hevey; film as crime, Ed Baxter; "sans-souci" - Christian Boltanski interviewed, Mark Durden and Lydia Papadimitriou; parlour made, Marina Warner; unsettling the West - contemporary American landscape photography, Rebecca Solnit; Zang Tumb Tuum, Craigie Horsfield; "I'm buggered without my prejudices" - Martin Parr interviewed, David Brittain; the morgue - Andres Serrano, Jim Harold; Jeff Wall - digital phantoms, Jeremy Millar; doppelganger - Wendy McMurdo interviewed, Sheila Mawson; new labour - Peter Kinnard interviewed, Shirley Read; between object and image, David Green; Dinos and Jake Chapmans' "Zygotic Exposure", David Green and Joanna Lowry; figures in a landscape, Nicholas Bornoff; photography, video and the everyday, Joanna Lowry; the big shift - Start Hall interviewed, Mark Sealy; defining the moment, Mark Durden; shock photos, John Taylor; obedient numbers, Geoffrey Batchen.
