Touching Photographs
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,Photography & Video
Touching Photographs Details
Review “This is essential reading for anyone interested in the newest thinking about photography. Beautifully argued, it reconceives our understanding of the photograph as an index of presence, seeing it instead as an event and a social practice that provokes relationship and community. Looking is tactile, embodied, interested, and often mistaken, but in Olin’s engrossing close readings, mistakes become revealing symptoms of the enduring power of images.” (Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University)“This book is a series of memorably profound excursions into the defining techniques of modernity. Olin is a simultaneously sympathetic and sharp reader of images and contexts, giving Touching Photographs considerable literary merit. This is a wonderful book.” (Christopher Pinney, University College, London)“By focusing our attention on the metaphor of touch, Olin reminds us of photography’s many layers of manifestation: as an indexical trace of the world it depicts, as a physical object that circulates in this world, and as a pictorial inducer of emotions and sentiments. Touched, touchable, and touching, the photograph is here submitted to Olin’s ‘tactile looking,’ allowing her to range widely, from her own personal snapshots to the work of masters, and even to encompass the searing experience of 9/11, in which photography played such a central role. Whether one chooses to ‘bask’ in her chosen photographs, as Olin suggests, or simply to learn from her erudition, this book will bring you in closer touch with what makes photography such a complex and fascinating cultural phenomenon.” (Geoffrey Batchen, Victoria University of Wellington)“Olin’s thoughts are provocative and sure to engage readers in further thought and response.” (Choice) “Olin . . . delivers a stimulating call to action—and interaction—that invites readers to consider the lasting work that images do on us, and that we do with them.” (Invisible Culture)“Beautifully produced. . . . An important achievement of Touching Photographs is that it extends the discussion of photography and touch beyond the personal and the familial to explore how photographs create wider communities, and foster collective bonds. . . . Rich and compelling.” (History of Photography) Read more About the Author Margaret Olin is a senior research scholar in the Divinity School, with joint appointments in the Departments of History of Art and Religious Studies and in the Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University. Read more
Reviews
This is a very special, intelligently written and informative book that will change the way you look at photographs. Margaret Olin is an expert in her field. Not surprising her latest book has been so well received by her contemporaries.
