From Daguerreotype to Digital
Shannon Thomas Perich is an associate curator in the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. She is the author of Richard Avedon's The Kennedy's- Portrait of a Family. She lives in Washington, DC.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Perich, associate curator of the Smithsonian’s Photographic History
Collection, looks at how photographic subjects, techniques, uses,
and approaches have changed from the mid-19th to the 21st century
by studying nine iconic photographers: Juliet Margaret Cameron,
Dorothea Lange, Richard Avedon, George K. Warren, Gertrude
Käsebier, Nicholas Murray, Henry Horenstein, Lauren Greenfield, and
Robert Weingarten. Perich’s fine introduction notes how photographs
represents “a complex balance of culture, technology, artistic
intention, personal and consumer use, and historical context.” She
explores these factors in essays on each photographer, providing
biographical information that proves particularly helpful in
parsing the images. Of Lange, for example, she suggests that the
photographer’s empathy for the Depression-era poor was partly based
on her own suffering—she was stricken by polio as a child and was
deeply scarred by her father’s desertion of the family. While one
can argue with Perich’s choices—why no W. Eugene Smith or Diane
Arbus?—she has unquestionably produced an important, well-written,
and aesthetically pleasing work. (Oct.)
CHOICE
Drawing from the rich, vast photographic collection of the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History,
associate curator Perich surveys the history of portrait
photography, and in so doing also offers a broader history of
photography. Beginning with the daguerreotype and ending with
current innovations in digital imaging, the author details the way
in which developments in technology served the needs of nine
portrait photographers and one photographic portrait studio. In
each of ten chapters, Perich provides a concise description of how
both well-known and lesser-known photographers exploited
innovations in technology to fulfill their aesthetic needs and the
demands of their audience. One of the strengths of the book is
Perich's ability to make clear the various complex photographic
processes and then contextualize them within each artist's oeuvre
to show how each development allowed for unique expression. The
extensive and lavish illustrations (130 total) and their
accompanying captions are another strength. This book will interest
those seeking a history of portrait photography and a general
history of photography. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower- and
upper-level undergraduates; general readers. -- J. H. Noonan,
Caldwell College
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