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Photography and Play
Photography and leisure go hand in hand. Cameras are part of our everyday lives, but we are never more likely to take a picture or to be photographed than when we are at play. As recreation and entertainment flourished in the nineteenth century, so too did the new medium of photography. Cameras became increasingly accessible to amateurs and were quickly deemed an indispensible part of what it meant to have fun. Acting as social commentators, many artists also turned their attention to the subject of pleasure and entertainment, often observing how photography itself has changed the way we spend our free time.
Photography and Play reveals the various ways that artists throughout photographic history have turned to topics as diverse as Victorian billiard players, Parisian barflies, moviegoers, sightseers, and suburban sunbathers. The book features eighty-seven photographs, all drawn from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, that span nearly 150 years of image making. The works included are by such noted artists as Diane Arbus, Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, André Kertész, Bill Owens, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Joel Sternfeld, Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee, and Garry Winogrand—all of whom documented people at play.
The illuminating introductory essay traces the relationship between the growing importance of leisure over the past 150 years and the part that photography has played in changing how we see ourselves.
Photography and Play reveals the various ways that artists throughout photographic history have turned to topics as diverse as Victorian billiard players, Parisian barflies, moviegoers, sightseers, and suburban sunbathers. The book features eighty-seven photographs, all drawn from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum, that span nearly 150 years of image making. The works included are by such noted artists as Diane Arbus, Eugène Atget, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, André Kertész, Bill Owens, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Joel Sternfeld, Alfred Stieglitz, Weegee, and Garry Winogrand—all of whom documented people at play.
The illuminating introductory essay traces the relationship between the growing importance of leisure over the past 150 years and the part that photography has played in changing how we see ourselves.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published June 5, 2012
8 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 9, 2016
I loved this book. I don't agree with another reviewer that the selection of photographs is too random. It is necessarily limited, since they are all taken from the collection of the Getty Museum, but there are some very interesting and well-thought-out juxtapositions.
This must be my favourite of the bunch:
It is by David Octavius Hill (who also features in the image, on the right) and Robert Adamson and dates from the 1840s.
It never ceases to amaze me how modern and creative many of those photo pioneers were, considering the limitations of their equipment. I used to equate early photography with those static "standing stock-still for the studio portrait" images, but photographs like these show such vibrancy (some great examples can also be found in Portraits).
Another, more unlikely, favourite of mine is this one by T. Lux Feininger. When I first saw the photo I thought it was from the early 1960s, but it's actually from 1929.
There are many enjoyable photos in the book though, and fortunately there is hardly any overlap with the photography books I already own.
This must be my favourite of the bunch:
It is by David Octavius Hill (who also features in the image, on the right) and Robert Adamson and dates from the 1840s.
It never ceases to amaze me how modern and creative many of those photo pioneers were, considering the limitations of their equipment. I used to equate early photography with those static "standing stock-still for the studio portrait" images, but photographs like these show such vibrancy (some great examples can also be found in Portraits).
Another, more unlikely, favourite of mine is this one by T. Lux Feininger. When I first saw the photo I thought it was from the early 1960s, but it's actually from 1929.
There are many enjoyable photos in the book though, and fortunately there is hardly any overlap with the photography books I already own.
March 5, 2015
I'd hoped this would be a winner with the elderly people I work with, but I think the selection is too random, even muddled, to make sense: although the overall theme is "play," it isn't totally apparent by just looking through it. Still, I enjoyed discovering the glorious photo "A Pastoral" dated 1905 by Louis Fleckenstein, and one of my clients told me she enjoyed the whole book thoroughly.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews