BOOK:Photography Today, Phaidon Publications

There have been many books that attempt to capture and analyse the depth and breadth of photography over a given period. The latest tome is “Photography Today”, compiled by Mark Durden, and published by Phaidon Press. Choosing the ‘60s to the present day as his timeframe, the author considers photography’s relationship to art history, focusing on the diversity of approaches and forms employed by key practitioners during this period.

By Dimitris Lempesis

At 464 pages, the book features more than 500 image reproductions by 150 artists and is divided into 11 chapters that cover themes such as portraiture, street photography, documentary and landscape photography. The content within each section goes into considerable detail, but remains accessible. For example, in a section called Appropriation Now, Durden writes about German artist Joachim Schmid and his practice, which involves re-appropriating photographs sourced from the internet, flea markets and the street. But rather than present a straightforward biographical account of his work, Durden contextualises Schmid’s practice with other artists also working with found photography. The work of photographers like: Martin Parr, Paul Graham, Sebastião Salgado and William Eggleston is on presentation , but there are many more photographers whose names may be less familiar to readers. For example, Ken Lum, a Canadian artist of Chinese heritage who is interested in the relationship between comic strip text and the photograph or Burkina Faso-born photographer and painter Saïdou Dicko, whose charming images of people’s shadows against walls use colour playfully and sensitively. Mark Durden’s narrative, combined with rich illustrative content and an easily accessible design, guides a clear path through this story, showcasing the work of great individual photographers while also being able to place this into the larger narrative of the medium’s development.