Why Art Photography

Contemporary art photography is paradoxical. Anyone can look at it and form an opinion about what they see, yet it represents critical positions that only a small minority of well-informed viewers can usually access.

Why Art Photography? provides a lively, accessible introduction to the ideas behind today’s striking photographic images. Exploring key issues such as ambiguity, objectivity, staging, authenticity, the digital and photography’s expanded field, the chapters offer fresh perspectives on existing debates. While the main focus is on the present, the book traces concepts and visual styles to their origins, drawing on carefully selected examples from recognized international photographers. Images, theories and histories are described in a clear, concise manner and key terms are defined along the way.

This book is ideal for anyone wanting to deepen their understanding of photography as an art form.

Lucy Soutter is a photographer, critic and art historian. She is a tutor in the Department of Critical and Historical Studies at the Royal College of Art. Her writings on contemporary art and photography include essays in Girls! Girls! Girls! in Contemporary Art (Intellect, 2011), Appropriation (Whitechapel Gallery, 2009) and Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary Photography (Scala, 2008).