Camera Culture

In a broad, discursive, highly engaging survey, University of Edinburgh psychology lecturer Beloff invites reflection on the state of photography as art today, on its history and on the pervasive functions of photography in modern life. The work is richly illustrated. David Hockney's montages demonstrate current elaborate, unfettered camera uses in art. Don McCullin's bare slices of inhumanity make atrocity mundane thanks to the picture page. ""Concerned'' photographers (Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange et al.) illuminate political and social imperatives. Photography is ``a mirror with a memory.'' Its mysteriescolor vs. black and white, nature vs. reality, accidental masterpieces, a photographer's ``moral obligation''these among many are here reviewed and analyzed. Beloff's book is an excellent reading companion to Susan Sontag's On Photography, but it also stands very well on its own. December 2