Photography: A Critical Introduction by Liz Wells (Editor) _ Book Review

Pete December 8, 2018

Liz Wells is a professor in Photographic Culture and Plymouth University and she has edited together this rather useful volume (now in it’s 5th Edition) which cover several major arrears of photographic theory, with chapters covering:

• Key debates in photographic theory and History
• Documentary photography and journalism
• Personal and popular photography
• Photography and the Human body
• Photography and commodity Culture
• Photography as art

Initially, I tried to sit down and read this from cover to cover but i found that an impossible task as it was not possible to take in everything that it was saying, therefore I use it more as a dip in a out reference volume.

The book is very user friendly with case studies throughout the chapters and has a “How to use this book” followed by detailed chapter summary and the beginning of the book.

I feel this is a reference that will follow me throughout the course of my studies with the OCA and I wish i had had it when I was undertaking EYV a couple of ago.