Photography Reborn: Image Making in the Digital Era (Abrams Studio) (Paperback)

by Jonathan Lipkin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The digital photography revolution may have taken place somewhat secretively inside dark boxes-cameras and computers-but the impact of digital photography, which is the subject of photographer and educator Lipkin's thorough introduction to the medium, has yet to be fully realized. Since its invention, photography has been a tool to both authenticate and manipulate experience. It is precisely this paradox that has made the medium so intriguing for critics, historians, photographers and viewers. But photography has never been as untrustworthy as it is now, and, according to Lipkin, it has also never been as creative. In accessible prose, Lipkin illustrates how digital photography has expanded the medium's expressive potential, ultimately bringing it closer to painting. This new definition of photography is supported by illustrations that range from abstract to realist to fantastical, with an emphasis on more challenging, if not creepy, images. The inclusion of computer-generated, digital images that appear to be photographs, but are not, such as visual representations of subatomic structures and avatars, may seem unwarranted, but fit Lipkin's idea that photography's authority and meaning have radically changed. Lipkin takes some provocative and challenging stances, such as arguing that we have reverted to a 19th-century way of seeing with this new technology, making for an intriguing read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description
Not long ago photographers considered digital pictures apostasy-but now film is increasingly being replaced as a great alternative medium for professionals, artists, and everyday snapshooters. Photography Reborn is the first comprehensive survey of this exciting new medium of visual expression-it is an essential reference for anyone who wants to understand this revolution.

In this important companion to a new art form, author Jonathan Lipkin chronicles the rise of digital technology and explores its impact as well as the limits of its possibilities. Every kind of digital image from MRI scans to fine art is highlighted here, from an obscure scientific application, through its adaptation by pioneer computer artists, to its acceptance by the mainstream of the art world. This seminal text-coupled with fascinating images and examples by contemporary artists Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Pedro Meyer, Nancy Burson, and Loretta Lux-is uniquely appropriate for anyone interested in visual communications, photography, and culture.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: "Harry N. Abrams, Inc." (November 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810992442
• ISBN-13: 978-0810992443
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #505,266 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #88 in

  Books > Professional & Technical > Engineering > Computer Technology > Imaging Systems

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tour-de-force of What Can Be Done, January 11, 2006

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The one thing you can say about digital photography is that it is certainly changing fast. And in this book Mr. Lipkin shows what a series of what you might call photographer/artists have done using digital images and computer manipulation of those images.

In many cases, you might view these images as closer to paintings than photographs. In other cases, the images are of things that we cannot see ourselves, MRI images from inside the skull of a living person, mountains on the surface of Venus. Other images are from somewhere in the mind of the producer. These might be composite pictures of several people, these might be images that start with a photograph but which now are so distorted and colors so changed that their origin is difficult to see.

This is not a book of techniques, it is a book of results, of ideas from the minds of people who are carrying digital photography into new areas.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice survey; not so great otherwise, January 11, 2008

By	Terry Enright "Terry K. Enright" (NYC, NY) - See all my reviews

Having recently read Susan Bright (Art Photography Now) and Charlotte Cotton (The Photograph As Contemporary Art), I can vouch that Lipkin avoids the deliberately opaque writing style his peers employ. And he seems to have some interesting ideas about how artists change with technology.

Unfortunately those ideas are often buried in thematic blubber. Lipkin's chapters are amorphous, no clear idea emerging through. He never fully says what a chapter is and why the photos are tied in. For instance, many of the photos in "The Body Electric" would seem more tied to "Portraiture in the Digital Age", at least going by the names. It would seem that clear sentences and an insightful writer would ensure a good book. Unfortunately, the lack of a decent editor standing over Lipkin's shoulder, telling him to define his ideas, predominates.

Still, you'll be exposed to 30 or so really great artists and some interesting points of view. One of his ideas--that Jennycam represented some major change in image-making and photography--was particularly annoying to me, as the accompanying J-cam images are artless and careless. Photography implies some vision sculpting an individual image; Jennicam was shapeless and random. That said, I appreciate Lipkin's provocation, here and elsewhere.

The book concludes with a tedious and, again, poorly defined history of digital photography (at one point Lipkin says the first digital image was created in 1957; then later says "the earliest digital images ... actually preceded the growth of electronic communication", the phone having been widely known for 50 years earlier). Given a chance to tie his disparate chapters together, Lipkin unwisely skimps on his bread-and-butter (theory) and instead emphasizes mechanical processes.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Digital Image, December 20, 2005

By	James H. Schwartz (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It is truly amazing the rate at which technology moves! Four years ago, the author thought that film photography was here to stay for a long while because digital cameras were expensive, not so good, and anyway, people would need fancy computers and printers to make accessible photos. Now easy internet business is routinely conducted with digital images. But, as Lipkin points out, in PHOTOGRAPHY REBORN, it is not only that digital photography takes the place of film. It does, but it also is a genuine new medium. This book tells how and why digital images can outmanipulate experience and reality, be a new aesthetic medium and be more subversive than film photographs in which Trotsky's image was removed from Stalin's. In fact, the book tells not only how digital photography works, but also is a great guide to what it promises to do in the future.