What Photography Is

In What Photography Is, James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner that he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is. Elkins argues that photograpy is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to show us things that we do not want or need to see--and pain--extremely powerful images that can sear into our consciousness permanently. Extensively illustrated with a surprising range of images, Elkins demonstrates that what makes photography uniquely powerful is its ability to express the difficulty--physically, psychologically, emotionally, and aethstically--of the act of seeing.