Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Photography: The Whole Story is a celebration of the most beautiful, meaningful and inspiring photographs that have arisen from this very modern medium. The book begins with a succinct overview of photography, placing it in the context of the social and cultural developments that have taken place globally since its arrival. Organized chronologically, the book then traces the rapid evolution of photographic style, period by period and movement by movement. Illustrated, in-depth essays cover every photographic genre, from the early portraits and tableaux to the digitally manipulated montages, splitsecond sports images, and conceptual photographs of today. The ideas and works of key photographers are assessed to reveal what motivated them, who influenced whom, and what each was striving to achieve. Detailed cultural and individual artist timelines clarify historical context. If you love photography and would like to know more, Photography: The Whole Story is for you.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Edited by Hacking (program director, Sotheby's Institute of Art in London), this survey history from 1826 to the present is divided into five chapters. The contents are international in scope and feature over 1,000 illustrations. Thirty-one contributors wrote the texts: auction specialists, academic scholars and curators, and independent writers, all from the US or Europe. The book's design owes a debt to how information is organized on and obtained from the Internet. In addition to a full-page, captioned reproduction of a photograph, on the facing page is an overlay of a composition called "navigator," in which thumbnail details are noted that are then illustrated and discussed as "focal points." Also included is a box labeled "photographer profile." This arrangement makes for lively and informative analysis. The chapters and subsections are introduced by an extended essay and a graphic time line of significant events. Such vast coverage necessitates certain omissions; in some cases readers will find less than a full accounting of a period or theme. Rather than being a narrative written from a traditional single point of view, this volume represents an accumulation of data from which one gains a perspective on the development of photography. Glossary and sources included. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. P. C. Bunnell emeritus, Princeton University