Customer Reviews

Over Exposed: Essays on Contemporary Photography

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Over Exposed deserves five stars for its catchy title and for its goal of providing a book of photography criticism. However, the book being reviewed fails as a book on photo criticism. What is found inside deserves only one star. Inside the covers of this 330 page book is found a good deal of pop-sociology and little on photography criticism. The book under review clearly articulates a general problem, and a problem that taints Over Exposed itself: "Enter the major university library in which some of the research for this article was carried out, and look for the section on photography . . . it contains a narrow assortment of books, titles such as The Photographic Lab Handbook . . . as well as a variety of coffee-table monographs . . . critical theory does not seem to have made much of an incursion into these shelves." (page 153). In short, the book under review contains not much "critical theory" and a great deal of gibberish. The book under review does contain a few insights into photo criticism. For example, there is a nice description of the technique or approach of photographing tourists in the act of photographing tourist traps (page 137). However, much of Over Exposed consists of irrelevant gibberish. For example: "All human sexuality is deviant. Nothing about our sexuality belongs to anything that could be described as a natural instinctual process. In the natural world, instinctual behavior is hereditary, predictable, and invariant in any member of a given species." (page 53). Another example of bizarre gibberish: "But the architecture discourse exemplified by Goldberger's journalism obscures the urban context most effectively not when it turns its back on the city altogether but when it professes social responsibility in the form of a concern for the city's physical environment." (page 57). More meaninngless gibberish and gobbledegook appears on page 90: "The supreme measure of the city's alignment with corporate interests in the area is the failure of any of its reports to mention the socioeconomic impact of the redevelopment plan on the area's low income population." (page 57). And on page 106: "The following discussion turns on a distinction between members of HIV/AIDS communities (intra-HIV community) and people who are not members of those communities (extra-HIV community). This may seem to be an invidious distinction, no matter where one stands in relation to these proposed categories." (page 106). And from page 192 comes more meaningless word salad: "The paradoxical emphasis on finding one's freedom in the loss of one's origins locates his outsideness in a Diasporic condition which, far from offering the dubious comforts of minoritarian self-certainty produces a kind of essential conflict through which to struggle to new visions." (page 192). Pages 229 to 246 are devoted to explaining why lipstick is a phallic symbol. To conclude, the book under review provides 330 pages of grammatically correct sentences that lack mission and purpose, and that are largely devoid of relevance to photographs. At best, the book might be viewed as relevant to changes in social mores and how these influence styles of photography. Many of the chapters make attempts at turgid, academic writing, by providing little lists of art critics or little lists of photographers. Moreover, the occasional reference to Karl Marx in this book is just a bit unbearable (please, this is supposed to be a little book on photography, not on political philosophy). In view of the focus of Over Exposed on gibberish and gobbledegook, what is the photographer to buy for guidance or solace? The reviewer suggests buying Why People Photograph by Robert Adams (Aperture) or Light Readings by A.D. Coleman (U. New Mexico).

This is the case of a new title for an old book: Carol Squiers (ed.), The Critical Image: Essays on Contemporary Photography (Seattle: Bay Press, 1990). Even the small, not significant changes, as is the replacement of three articles by four new ones, does not justify a new edition as a new book, with a new title. If I had previous acquaitance of this, I would not order this book.

Carol Squiers has once again brought together the perfect blend of photographic interpretation, classic articles combined with cutting edge thought. I especially enjoyed the emphasis on multiple perspectives as illustrated by Theresa Harlan's discussion of contemporary Native American photography.

I am sorry I bought this book. The reviews on the back cover are misleading. None of these essays illuminate the practice of photography. Good criticism should do this. It is a collection of academic-style intellectual high wire-ism that really is about critics adding to critical theory for the sake of creating a critical theory, but basically analyzing it to death so there is no life left. This style of criticism is over-exposed. It is very dry and very dull. For example, let me interpret the codes and signs of the texts into my own personal meaning: There are so many words that really attempt to add up to something, but if you look under the surface, a lot of the writing is either inconclusive, pushing its own socio-political agenda or just plain meaningless and banal. And none of the book's parts add up to make a whole. This type of critical theory eats itself. The only illuminating article is about surrealism and photography by Andy Grundberg (yet not one of his best). Tiny photos of poor quality reproduction. How can any serious book about photography critical theory have tiny photographs? That speaks volumes in itself.

The only thing lacking for me - the photos were so few and small (although the ones that were selected were perfect) that they did not illuminate the text as was the purpose.

My favorites were -

Deborah Bright on Mirrors and Window Shoppers: Lesbians, Photography, and the Politics of Visibility - Which included a number of photos including Yantra #56 by Tee A. Corinne taken in 1982 and is still evocative today

Carole S. Vance on The Pleasures of Looking: The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography versus Visual Images

Carol Squiers on the paparazzi

Griselda Pollock on images of women

Victor Burgin on Helmut Newton

Other Contributors:

Geoffrey Batchen on digital photogrpahy

Rosalyn Deutsche on activism and photography

Timothy Druckrey on the Web

Jan Zita Grover on portraiture

Andy Grundberg on surrealism

Theresa Harlan on self-representation

Silvia Kolbowski "Playing with Dolls'

Rosalind Krauss on the nature of the "real"

Kobena Mercer on erotic photography

Christian Metz on fetish

Kathy Myers on advertising

Abigail Solomon-Godeau

From the back of the book; In recent years, photographic images have been blamed for everything from heroin chic and meaningless politics to women's distorted body images and the death of Princess Diana. In Over Exposed, a group of distinguished photographers, critics, and cultural historians examine the many roles of photography in contemporary western culture, covering questions about representation, sexual politics, public policy, and cultural activism.

Taking up where her widely praised first collection, The Critical Image, left off, Carol Squiers, senior editor of American Photo, collects writing on contemporary issues in photography including those raised by the new digital photography and the Web.

About the Author

Carol Squiers is currently senior editor of American Photo, was photography critic for Vanity Fair and The Village Voice, and is a regular columnist for Artforum.