1. Photography now : The structure of this book -- 2. The identity of photography : Fixing the image: the conception of photography ; Modernism: the nature of photography ; Postmodernism: the culture of photography ; The thing itself? The question of indexicality ; Past/present/future: photography and time ; Digital debates: revolution or evolution? ; The photograph as object: materiality ; The photograph as image: dematerialisation ; From fixity to transience: the re-conception of photography -- 3. The meanings of photographs : Understanding semiotics: signs, signifiers and signifieds ; A bag of pasta and a cup of tea: rhetoric of the image ; Fixing meanings: words ; Fixing meanings: contexts ; Fixing meanings: discourses ; Photography and psychoanalysis: the unconscious, fetishism and the uncanny ; Pleasures of looking at photographs: the gaze ; Viewers of photographs: other looks ; Camera Lucida: studium and punctum -- 4. Photography for sale : Photography for selling: advertising and identification ; From selling products to creating atmospheres: advertising photography and image banks ; Photography against selling: subvertising and stencils ; Selling photographs: marketing the media ; Selling photography: mass-marketing the medium ; Selling digital photography: fixed and transient commodities -- 5. Snapshots : Private snapshots: the silent majority of photography ; The nature of snapshots: the snapshooter's eye ; The Kodak culture of snapshots: tourism, family and memory ; Phototherapy: the family album and beyond ; Digital snapshots: screens and performance ; Online social networking: snapshots go public -- 6. The photograph as document : Photographs as evidence: portraits and surveillance ; Classification by observation: anthropology and colonialism ; Objective fictions: documentary photography and photojournalism ; Subjective facts: documentary photography in the photobook and gallery ; Shock and awe: war and its aftermath ; Evidence by participants: amateur documents and citizen journalism -- 7. Photographs as art : Pictorialism: photography as painting ; Modernism: 'straight' photography ; Photography in the modern art gallery: authorship and expression ; Conceptual art: artists using photography ; Postmodernism: the artist as photographer and 'the death of the author' ; Contemporary art photography: the photographer as artist -- 8. Photographs in fashion : The 1920s to the 1960s: elitism to accessibility ; The 1970s and the 1980s: fantasy -- Into the 1990s: abject realism ; Post-photographic pre-millennial fashion photography: anxiety and desire ; The 2000s: performance art -- 9. Photography and celebrity : The face of celebrity: photographing the famous ; The golden age of celebrity: fame and mass reproduction ; The celebrity close-up: paparazzi photography and fan culture ; The circle of shame: mortification and the age of mass celebrity ; Virtually famous: digital reproduction and online celebrity -- 10. After photography?
Summary:
Photography explores the photograph in the twenty-first century and its importance as a media form. Stephen Bull considers our media-saturated society and the place of photography in everyday life, introducing the theories used to analyze photographs and exploring the impact of digital technology. Topics covered include: *the identity of photography *the meanings of photographs *photography for sale *snapshots *the photograph as document *photography as art *photographs in fashion *photography and celebrity.
Series:
Routledge introductions to media and communications.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.