Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art

Superb critique of photography through history "The critic's job is to place the particular example in the larger context." This book is a brilliant example. Szarkowski here lovingly selects one photograph from each of 100 photographers -- 100 photos from the MOMA collection -- to illustrate the serpentine history of photography. Some of the photos are extraordinary, others are mundane, but so is the chaotic field of photography. This handsome book hints at the depth and breadth of the solutions to the question of what is significant in pictures. I have poured over this book again and again. I have lent it to friends. I d. "Pictoral index to the history of photography" according to Michael Haspert. "The Online Photographer" tipped me off to this excellent book, and boy were they right.This book discusses 100 photographers (100 shots with no artist twice). They are in approximately chronological order. The author discusses why the shots are the way they are in terms of technological limits, expectations/assumptions/conventions of the time, and composition; though not often all three for a single photo.Following up on each photographer via wikipedia and image search was my roll-my-own version of a History of Photography. (but only up to 1969, which is the date of the last. A Wonderful Book William Pickett John Szarkowski understood still photography. I can say that of very few people. This book and The Photographer's Eye are both really good. When I first looked at photographs, it took me a while to understand. If I had been able to see this book back then, it would surely have been easier to arrive at a perspective of understanding.

Reissued in 1999-with new digital duotones-this volume is now available to a new generation of readers."This is a picture book, and its first purpose is to provide the material for simple delectation," says Szarkowski in his introduction to this first survey of The Museum of Modern Art's photography collection. A visually splendid album, the book is both a treasury of remarkable photographs and a lively introduction to the aesthetics and the historical development of photography.Since 1930, when the