Basic Critical Theory for Photographers, by the photographer and lecturer Ashley la Grange, was published by Focal Press in 2005. It answers a simple problem stated in its opening pages: many photographers are put off critical theory because it seems difficult and unrelated to their practice, and because much of it is written by academics for other academics. La Grange’s solution is to take a small number of key texts and walk through them, chapter by chapter, in plain language.
What the book covers
Each chapter summarises and discusses one text or pair of texts:
- John Berger, Ways of Seeing;
- John Szarkowski, The Photographer’s Eye, and Stephen Shore, The Nature of Photographs;
- Susan Sontag, On Photography, the longest chapter;
- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida;
- Martha Rosler on documentary photography, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau’s “Inside/Out”;
- Clive Scott on photography and language, and Andy Grundberg’s “The Crisis of the Real”;
- Raghubir Singh on colour, Bertrand Russell on appearance and reality, and Italo Calvino’s story “The Adventures of a Photographer”;
- a final chapter where Robert Adams, John Baldessari and Peter Godwin analyse particular photographs.
A glossary, appendices and a bibliography complete the volume, which makes it usable as a reference as well as a course book.
Approach and strengths
La Grange writes as a teacher. He paraphrases arguments, quotes key passages, and then asks what they mean for someone who actually makes photographs. The selection mixes classic theory with photographers’ own writing (Szarkowski, Shore, Adams), which is the book’s main originality: theory is presented as a conversation that photographers take part in, not only something done to them. The chapter on Sontag is particularly detailed and helps readers through a book whose essays are often quoted but rarely read in full.
Limits
Published in 2005, the book predates the smartphone, social media and the debates on post-photography and AI images. Its canon is also largely Anglo-American and European. Readers will want to complement it with more recent surveys, such as Liz Wells’s Photography: A Critical Introduction or Charlotte Cotton’s The Photograph as Contemporary Art.
Who it is for
Photography students, self-taught photographers who want to understand the texts their teachers and critics quote, and anyone looking for a gentle first step before reading the originals.
How to use it
The book works best as a companion to the original texts rather than a replacement. A practical approach is to read one chapter, then the corresponding original – Berger, Sontag or Barthes – and finally return to La Grange’s questions to test them against your own photographs. The chapter devoted to analyses of particular photographs by Robert Adams, John Baldessari and Peter Godwin is especially useful for learning to write about a single image, a skill that is central in art schools and portfolio reviews.
The selection also shows how much of photography theory comes from photographers themselves. Szarkowski was a photographer before becoming a curator at MoMA, Shore and Adams are major artists, and Rosler is both an artist and a critic.
Reference
Ashley la Grange, Basic Critical Theory for Photographers, Oxford and Burlington (MA): Focal Press (Elsevier), 2005. The book is protected by copyright; it is available from booksellers and in university libraries.
1 thought on “Ashley la Grange, Basic Critical Theory for Photographers (2005): Book Guide”