Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography

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Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography

4.08 of 5 stars 4.08 · rating details · 329 ratings · 64 reviews

Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year

Academy Award-wining filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the hidden truths behind a series of documentary photographs.

In Believing Is Seeing Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography. In his inimitable style, Morris untangles the mysteries behind...more Selected by The New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of the Year

Academy Award-wining filmmaker Errol Morris investigates the hidden truths behind a series of documentary photographs.

In Believing Is Seeing Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography. In his inimitable style, Morris untangles the mysteries behind an eclectic range of documentary photographs, from the ambrotype of three children found clasped in the hands of an unknown soldier at Gettysburg to the indelible portraits of the WPA photography project. Each essay in the book presents the reader with a conundrum and investigates the relationship between photographs and the real world they supposedly record.

During the Crimean War, Roger Fenton took two nearly identical photographs of the Valley of the Shadow of Death-one of a road covered with cannonballs, the other of the same road without cannonballs. Susan Sontag later claimed that Fenton posed the first photograph, prompting Morris to return to Crimea to investigate. Can we recover the truth behind Fenton's intentions in a photograph taken 150 years ago?

In the midst of the Great Depression and one of the worst droughts on record, FDR's Farm Service Administration sent several photographers, including Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evans, to document rural poverty. When Rothstein was discovered to have moved the cow skull in his now-iconic photograph, fiscal conservatives-furious over taxpayer money funding an artistic project-claimed the photographs were liberal propaganda. What is the difference between journalistic evidence, fine art, and staged propaganda?

During the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006, no fewer than four different photojournalists took photographs in Beirut of toys lying in the rubble of bombings, provoking accusations of posing and anti-Israeli bias at the news organizations. Why were there so many similar photographs? And were the accusers objecting to the photos themselves or to the conclusions readers drew from them?

With his keen sense of irony, skepticism, and humor, Morris reveals in these and many other investigations how photographs can obscure as much as they reveal and how what we see is often determined by our beliefs. Part detective story, part philosophical meditation, Believing Is Seeing is a highly original exploration of photography and perception from one of America's most provocative observers.(less)

Hardcover, 310 pages

Published September 1st 2011 by Penguin Press HC, The

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New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011

74th out of 100 books — 41 voters

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Apr 08, 2013 Larry rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: civil-war, history, photography

I think Errol Morris is a brilliant documentary film maker. So when I saw this book I had to read it. It is an analytical look at a handful of amazing photographs. His expertise is going behind the photo to reveal it's meaning. Captions sit uncomfortably with him and he pursues the very thoughts of each photographer as they made the image, although that's not always possible. The key photos are Fenton's "Valley of Death" photo from the Crimean War, Abu Ghraib photos, photos from Lebanon during t...more

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Jun 25, 2012 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Liars

Recommended to Alan by: The library's Lucky Day shelf

Cameras don't lie, they say—but photographers can, and do. And for photo journalists, that doesn't necessarily imply anything as obviously wrong as retouching a print in the darkroom, or manipulating it with the magic of software (although those happen too). Merely moving an object within the camera's field of vision could constitute manipulation. And sometimes the image itself is unchanged, and it's the context presented with the image that makes it utterly misleading.

For the essays in Believin ...more Cameras don't lie, they say—but photographers can, and do. And for photo journalists, that doesn't necessarily imply anything as obviously wrong as retouching a print in the darkroom, or manipulating it with the magic of software (although those happen too). Merely moving an object within the camera's field of vision could constitute manipulation. And sometimes the image itself is unchanged, and it's the context presented with the image that makes it utterly misleading.

For the essays in Believing is Seeing, documentarian Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line; A Brief History of Time; Fast, Cheap and Out of Control et al.) interviews dozens of photographers, journalists and other figures involved in the creation and interpretation of photographs that range in time from the Crimean War to Abu Ghraib—images that are supposed to be, that have been presented as being, truthful. The first essay, about the intentions of Roger Fenton, one of the earliest war photographers, and two photographs Fenton took of an empty, cannonball-strewn road, pulled me in as I was browsing, and I knew I had to read the rest.

And I was not disappointed. In thoughtful, measured prose, profusely illustrated, Morris takes us through his own process of discovery about the photographs he's considering, as he learns more about the images themselves and the people who created them. It's fascinating stuff, and Morris is not afraid to show the reversals in his own opinions about the shots—another facet of the same intellectual honesty he prizes in the photographers who are, this time, the subjects of his gaze.

It is impossible—and if it were possible, it would still be unwise—to remove subjectivity entirely from photography. Someone—if only the viewer of a stream of photographs taken blindly by a robot camera—will still be choosing to pay attention to the ones that are worthy of that attention, and ignoring those that are not. More commonly, the journalistic photographer has a role in the editorial process as well, framing, selecting and cropping the shots taken in order to have the most impact... but this editorial role must be managed with integrity, neither adding elements that were not in the original image, nor removing or changing elements that were. It's a fine line sometimes, one which Morris views from both sides with calm intensity.

Believing is Seeing is not a how-to manual, despite its at times incredibly detailed discussion of photographic techniques. It is instead a why-to manual... both a celebration of and an exhortation to honesty and integrity, whenever a person with a lens purports to expose the truth.
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Apr 19, 2012 Brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Silly rabbit, photographs are tricks! 'Believing Is Seeing' is a forensic inquiry into the "legitimacy"of a few famous photographs (Valley Of The Shadows Of Death, the Abu Ghraib Hooded man photo, the Sabrina Harman 'Thumbs Up' photo over mutilated body at same location, Dust Bowl and other propaganda photos, etc.) Photography does not, has never, will never express objective truth. All photography is manipulated; by the photographers frame perspective, by lens length, length of exposure, darkro...more

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Apr 10, 2012 Justin rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book presents a cool idea executed by someone I believe is one of America's coolest figures, the documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. He has the mind of a private investigator and the heart of an artist, which has resulted in some of the most probing yet beautiful films ever made, including The Fog of War and Gates of Heaven.

Whether interviewing Robert McNamara and trying to understand what motivated one of the key players in the Vietnam War (Fog) or literally playing detective in the case o...more This book presents a cool idea executed by someone I believe is one of America's coolest figures, the documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. He has the mind of a private investigator and the heart of an artist, which has resulted in some of the most probing yet beautiful films ever made, including The Fog of War and Gates of Heaven.

Whether interviewing Robert McNamara and trying to understand what motivated one of the key players in the Vietnam War (Fog) or literally playing detective in the case of a wrongly accused murderer (as he did for The Thin Blue Line), Morris always has some sort of mystery at play in his works. He loves trying to figure out something he doesn't understand. In Believing Is Seeing, he tries to understand a series of mysterious photographs by interviewing the people who either took them or were in them or even involved with them indirectly, and traveling to the locations where they were took.

As I said, it's a cool idea, but I actually think it would have made a better film - Morris' true area of expertise. The advantage to the book form is that he can include the original photo as well as several variations on it (zooming in and out on different sections, lightened and darkened versions, etc.), allowing the reader to linger over them and analyze along with him. The disadvantage is that aside from the visual source material, the important parts of each chapter are taken from interviews, which become rather tiresome to read. Morris is one of the great interviewers and is a master of capturing his interviewees in strange and compelling ways onscreen - on paper his Q and A's don't have anywhere near the same power.

The first chapter, in particular, wherein Morris travels to the Valley of the Shadow of Death to try to figure out two Roger Fenton photos depicting a cannon-ball-strewn road from the Crimean War, seems ripe for the cinema. In Crimea, Morris hooks up with a quirky female guide who leads him around rocky terrain in high heels as he tries to find the exact spot where the pics were taken and determine which one came first - the one with balls on the road or the one where the balls are to the side of the road. His journey to solve the mystery is funny and fascinating and given philosophical gravitas by his ruminations on the truth of photography. The order of the images has many ramifications for the "truth" of the photos; were the balls staged on the road to add more drama? Were they already there but then moved aside? Does it matter whether the balls were manipulated or not? Isn't the drama and horror of war what the shot is supposed to convey and don't we glean that from it regardless?

Such questions dictate the pulse of the rest of the book, which continues to ponder the same issues of art vs. truth around different images including a famous Mickey Mouse toy captured during the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese War, an infamous shot of a cow skull taken during the Great Depression and the even more infamous torture and abuse images from Abu Ghraib. It all seemed interesting at the outset, and yet I found it a struggle to get through each chapter, as it kind of felt like the same thing being said in different words again and again. I would suggest for those interested in this book to read the first chapter then toss it aside and watch all of Morris's films, which are some of the greatest ever made.(less)

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Oct 30, 2011 Jack Cheng added it

I have to admit I was not keen to read this book because I found Morris' blog posts on the NYTimes site kind of tiring to read through. But those same essays, in book form, are much more engaging and enjoyable. Part of the reason is the design of the book, with illustrations as well placed as an Edward Tufte volume. The readability comes also from the fact that some of the writing is in the form of "dialogue" -- transcripts (edited, presumably) of conversations Morris had with others.

The book is...more

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Oct 25, 2011 Nat added it

Errol Morris shows how the meaning of photographs shifts when the context in which they're viewed shifts. As a contextualist, I found this an exciting (if not surprising) demonstration. Each essay is an exercise in changing the context of famous photographs. Fenton's In the Valley of the Shadow of Death changes from a document of the horrors of war into a way of exposing interpretive hubris and the limits of knowledge. The snapshots of torture taken by MPs in Abu Ghraib become forensic data in t...more

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Oct 10, 2011 Mary Overton added it

"I, too, look at the two Fenton photographs and try to imagine what Fenton's intentions might have been. It's unavoidable. People have been programmed to do so by natural selection - to project ourselves into the world - and to imagine Fenton's world as we imagine ours. We want to know where we end and the world begins. We want to know where that line is. It's the deepest problem of epistemology.
"All of the central issues of photography that I address in this book of essays - questions of posing...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Ryan G rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: no-longer-own

It's rare that I can read a book of essays and not find one of them boring. In an ordinary collection, at least one will be about something Ihave absolutely dull and am forced to either finish reading it, or miss out on something I could learn from. Thankfully with Believing Is Seeing, documentary film maker, Errol Morris, has managed to write 4 lively and interesting essays into an aspect of photography I've never really thought about before.

In these essays he examines the nature and history of...more It's rare that I can read a book of essays and not find one of them boring. In an ordinary collection, at least one will be about something Ihave absolutely dull and am forced to either finish reading it, or miss out on something I could learn from. Thankfully with Believing Is Seeing, documentary film maker, Errol Morris, has managed to write 4 lively and interesting essays into an aspect of photography I've never really thought about before.

In these essays he examines the nature and history of documentary photography and the way it can be used to not only create a memorable image, but to create a flas image and a false reaction in the viewer as well. Through an exhausting amount of time researching and interviewing, he takes on the enormous taks of not only looking at why a particular picture is taken, but how it was taken. He delves into the minutae of whether or not a picture was staged and if it was, how it was achieved. Thankfully, he doesn't stop his examination there. He also chose to investigate the motivations behind and the fallout after the fact. Does it really matter if a cow skull is moved around if it get the same point across? Does a picture have to be staged to create a false impression? Does the way a photographer frames and edits alter the image itself?

In "Abu Ghraib Essays (Photographs Reveal And Conceal)" he examines two photographs that I think we would all recognize. The first is of a hooded man standing on a box, hooked up to what appears to be wires. The man is being tortured and it's hard not to have an initial reaction to it. What I did not know before reading this book was that the man has been positively identified, but also had a different man claiming to be him. Morris examines the backround of the story and hwo the fact a man falesly came forward changed the dynamic of hte story and the photograph itself. Does this false claim make the horrow of any less impactful? Does he hurt the cause of justice for the other victims of Abu Ghraib? Does the fact that he may have truly believed he was the man in the picture, matter at all?

The second photograph examined in this essay is the infamous one of MP Sabrina Harman posing with a dead prisoner, giving the thumbs up sign. When I first saw the photograph, I was appalled by the image. In my gut, I was horrified and embarrased that a fellow American, a soldier, was appearing to be so callous in the face of a horrific death. I'm grateful that Morris chose this photograph to delve into. He not only examined the motivations of Sabrina Harman, but he looked into the backstory of the events that lead up to the photograph. I still have a visceral reaction when I look at the picture, but I'm no longer judging the young soldier pictured in it. If this essay taught me anything, I learned that without knowing the context of a picture, there is no way to get the whole story.(less)

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Aug 29, 2011 Kathleen (Kat) Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, photography

In Believing Is Seeing Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography. In his inimitable style, Morris untangles the mysteries behind an eclectic range of documentary photographs, from the ambrotype of three children found clasped in the hands of an unknown soldier at Gettysburg to the indelible portraits of the WPA photography project. Each essay in the book presents the reader with a conundrum and investigates the relationship between photograph...more In Believing Is Seeing Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris turns his eye to the nature of truth in photography. In his inimitable style, Morris untangles the mysteries behind an eclectic range of documentary photographs, from the ambrotype of three children found clasped in the hands of an unknown soldier at Gettysburg to the indelible portraits of the WPA photography project. Each essay in the book presents the reader with a conundrum and investigates the relationship between photographs and the real world they supposedly record.

During the Crimean War, Roger Fenton took two nearly identical photographs of the Valley of the Shadow of Death-one of a road covered with cannonballs, the other of the same road without cannonballs. Susan Sontag later claimed that Fenton posed the first photograph, prompting Morris to return to Crimea to investigate. Can we recover the truth behind Fenton’s intentions in a photograph taken 150 years ago?

In the midst of the Great Depression and one of the worst droughts on record, FDR’s Farm Service Administration sent several photographers, including Arthur Rothstein, Dorothea Lange, and Walker Evans, to document rural poverty. When Rothstein was discovered to have moved the cow skull in his now-iconic photograph, fiscal conservatives-furious over taxpayer money funding an artistic project-claimed the photographs were liberal propaganda. What is the difference between journalistic evidence, fine art, and staged propaganda?

During the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006, no fewer than four different photojournalists took photographs in Beirut of toys lying in the rubble of bombings, provoking accusations of posing and anti-Israeli bias at the news organizations. Why were there so many similar photographs? And were the accusers objecting to the photos themselves or to the conclusions readers drew from them?

My Review:

For most people who look at articles in the newspapers, magazines or even books, when a picture accompanies them we are often looking at that picture and forming an opinion. Hand in hand with whatever the article states, we may buy into the story because what is being written about and what the picture show make a match in our brain. However what Errol Morris does in the book, Believing Is Seeing, is show a picture with the proposed article and how at times in history, they have been made to appear as though they were real, when in fact they were an image created to tie into the story.

These are created to help influence what we read and what we see, so that the audience is more prone to believe it based not just on what they read but also what they see, even though at times the images are created and not really what is happening.

Errol Morris uses many such examples of photos with one being a cow skull show over a dry and cracked land. In the article that accompanied the picture, the reader was made to believe that this photo was taken to show what was happening in the Dust Bowl era in order to get people to buy into Franklin Roosevelt's programs to aid the farmers even though the photo was staged.

I received this book compliments of TLC Book Tours for my honest review and found the book an interesting read. Its hard to imagine that this type of marketing happens to use photos to pull at the emotional heart strings of people, but if it works, they will use it. Many such examples are shown through the book along with commentaries explaining how it was used. This is a great book for anyone looking into marketing or photo journalism or just photography in general to see how pictures invoke emotions in all of us. I rate this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars. (less)

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Apr 24, 2013 Charles rated it 4 of 5 stars

The essays in this book use a variety of subjects from famous photos of the Farm Security Administration to the Abu Ghraib portfolio to investigate epistemological questions about the nature of truth in photographs. And lest that turn you off, the good news is Errol Morris does a fantastic job of keeping the material accessible by relying on conversational interview transcripts much more than academic papers or other such esoteric resources.

What does it mean to pose a photograph? How does that...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads, some-recent-favorites

Crimean war photography; the Abu Ghraib photos of the Hooded Man and Sabrina Harman's smile; FSA photography and the work of Edward Rothstein/Walker Evans; war photojournalism and the political messages behind the "posing" of toys; civil war photography and search for meaning in the past. What is a "realistic", unaltered, documentary photograph and what does it mean to pose/alter a photograph - is choosing what to frame not itself a selection of reality? "Couldn't you argue that every photograph...more

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Oct 20, 2011 Paula rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: art, history, non-fiction

That photography both reveals and conceals is not a new idea. Or that, as Morris comments, "concepts of naturalness, authenticity, and posing are all slippery slopes that when carefully examined become hopelessly vague." Or that, throughout the history of photography, photographers and others have grappled with the relationship of the photograph to reality. So, I experienced no "Aha" moments while reading Believing is Seeing . . . . Rather, of most interest to me were the details about the photo...more

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Oct 02, 2011 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars

First of all, this book is simply highly appealing visually, with its stark graphics and many engaging reproductions of photographs, charts, maps, and so on. The filmmaker Errol Morris has chosen a number of controversial photographs--among them, shots from Abu Ghraib, the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006, and various WPA images of Depression-era families and landscapes--to talk about how what we see is influenced by what we already believe. Morris is an obsessive detective, ferreting out as much as h...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Ed Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a collection of detective stories. This book presents case studies of the idea that we see what we expect to see. In each he conducts what can only be called obsessive research to demonstrate his point. Two photographs taken from the same spot during the Crimean War, which was shot first. Obviously, it is the one with the cannon balls on the road, shot to make the battle look more harrowing. But how does she know? Morris, angry, it seems, at her presumptuousness is going to go to the Cri...more

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Sep 07, 2011 Serena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Believing Is Seeing: (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography) by Errol Morris, a filmmaker, unravels the mysteries of documentary photography. Why is Morris so skeptical about documentary photographs? Does it relate to his deceased father and the secrecy around his role in the family or to his eye surgery as a child? Beyond that, Morris seeks out factual evidence through testimony, history, and careful examination of light and contrast to determine the authenticity of photos and the storie...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Kevin Cecil rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, male-author, picture-book, skepticism

"War is such a peculiar thing - inaugurated by the whims of a few, affecting the fate of many. It is a difficult, if not impossible thing to understand, yet we feel compelled to describe it as though it has meaning - even virtue. It starts for reasons often hopelessly obscure, meanders on, then stops."

"In the pre-photographic era, images came directly from our eyes to our brains and were part of our experience of reality. With the advent of photography, images were torn free from the world, snat...more

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Jan 11, 2012 Adrian added it

Six studies in photography-fascinating stuff even if Morris' circumlocution is a bit unnerving. If you've seen 'The Thin Blue Line' you'll understand what I mean. He certainly has his own style of interviewing, at times ingratiating, other times wheedling and slyly getting his subjects to admit something they hadn't expected to. The question of posing objects in photographs is broached in several of the essays. I have to admit to being a purist here. I'm against all positioning of objects and co...more

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Feb 23, 2013 Salvatore rated it 4 of 5 stars

An absolutely fascinating look into photography theory - the narrative, the creation, the rationale of some controversial photographs. The investigation into the minutiae Erroll Morris undertakes gives these essays an almost superhuman understanding of the photographs' truths. With an impartial (impartial as possible) eye, he hunts down family members, subjects, and the creators themselves to build their narratives together to make sense of the messy situations some of these deceptively simple i...more

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Nov 13, 2011 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: essays, history, read-2011, photography

I enjoyed the six essays on photography in this collection by the incomparable documentarian Errol Morris. Each chapter tackles a case study in order to examine what constitutes or doesn't constitute "truth" in photography. He examines the intentions of the photographer, what photos reveal and conceal, captioning and propaganda, and how photography shapes memory of events personal and historical. Among his topics are photos from the Crimean War, Abu Ghraib, Walker Evans, and a family portrait fo...more

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Dec 26, 2011 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, photography, philosophy

A fascinating series of essays on the nature of photography, and the way it can reveal (and obscure) truth. While the bulk of this book was available on the New York Times website as a series of essays, the layout and presentation work here is truly impressive. Morris's writing is lucid and compelling, and his ability to coax information from interview subjects is rightfully revered.

As Morris takes the reader from the Crimean War to the Civil War by way of (among other places and times) Abu Ghra...more

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Feb 06, 2012 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: art-and-architecture

It's not that the questions are uninteresting. Really, they are! It's that the book isn't really about the questions; it's about Errol Morris' obsession. And that makes perfect sense, of course. The thing with great philosophical questions (what is reality? what can we really know?) is that there are no answers. So what you're judging is just the way different people attack the question. If you enjoy following someone step by step through an exhausting investigation which you know in advance wil...more

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Dec 18, 2011 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thought provoking essays on interpretation, the value of intention, and the tension between written/photographic/physical records. The essays cover a nice spectrum of history that kept my interest. In the end, it feels like Errol got Ken Burns and Chuck Klosterman to help create this book; strangely they are not credited so I can only infer things and hypothesize why not; likely now the pursuit of answers will send me on planes to far off countries and have me spend lots of time in unswank libra...more

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Jun 23, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

A great book about photography and belief, the way we privilege data on certain platforms, and the way we untangle our intertwined beliefs and observations. The final chapter is weaker than the rest, and I wonder if some other chapter of Civil War photography couldn't have kept the spirit of skepticism better than the way Morris went. Morris asks delightful teasing questions and takes us through the way he chases down answers, where answers actually exist. A fine and accessible book of epistemol...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

What a fascinating book! It challenges the assumption that the camera doesn't lie. Errol Morris shows us how the stories presented by a superficial look at documentary photographs are not always what they seem. Morris goes to extreme lengths to get to the bottom of the circumstances surrounding several controversial photos. He reminds us that too often we look at things superficially, and that unless we are willing to take the time and mental effort to go deep, we accept a vision of reality that...more

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Oct 21, 2011 Noah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Although all the discussions in this book center around photographs, it's not really about photography, it's about epistemology. It's about the insidious ways we accept a certain "truth" based on false assumptions, about how we sometimes assume there is a single "truth" when there might be many or none. I have trouble summarizing this book but Morris is a master of taking something most people would accept at face value and pulling on the thread until it takes you somewhere you never thought it...more

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Nov 24, 2012 julie rated it 5 of 5 stars

i really loved this book - it engaged me, it made me think and most of all, it made me long for someone to discuss it with - it made me want a photography book club in my life. because it warrants discussion and debate. it made me so much more aware of the emotions and intentions that we bring to any photograph - how much of the story of a photograph happens inside of our own heads.

the highlights, for me, were definitely chapter 1 - on two photos of a crimean war battlefield taken by photograph...more

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Apr 24, 2012 Jamie Gaughran-Perez rated it 5 of 5 stars

Sure, I skipped the FSA essay after reading the opening of it (and maybe I'll go back and read that some day), but this is a phenomenal book all the same. Even great books are allowed a misstep here and there. As for the rest... The tone, the suspense (if you can call it that), the attention to detail, reporting, insight. All riveting, constantly I there's ting. Constantly fact- and thought-laden. If you've ever read some Joseph Berger or dug into the deep think on what journalism is or ever won...more

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May 29, 2012 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Picked up this book out of the new section of books at the library just based on the title. I'm definitely intrigued by Errol Morris. This book was an interesting exploration of essays regarding the value of photography with regard to the definition of the medium as a form of documentation rather than an art form. How valuable is a photograph as a document? How truthful is it? How much can we see or learn from a photograph? What assumptions do we make based on an image? How much does the photogr...more

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Mar 31, 2012 Martin Doudoroff rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not as dry as I expected, actually a pretty quick read. A fun read, too. As literature, it's nothing grand—it's a series of essays that recount Morris’ relentless deconstruction and research around a series of photographs, largely as a response to Sontag. My reading in photography is spotty, but I suspect this book is probably going down as one of the more important books on photography if only for taking one of the major critical works out for a beating. Regardless, each chapter is fascinating...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Lauren added it

Morris mentions it in passing at one point, but I think this book, more than anything, is him trying to discover what it means to be a documentarian. Photographs pose trickier questions than documentaries simply because of their emphasis on a static, single framed image. I haven't watched "Standard Operating Procedure" yet, but if its scope proves to be even a shadow of what Morris reveals in the section on the Abu Ghraib photo scandal, I'll be pleased. This is an enjoyable exercise in research...more

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