Photography in America - Paperback

by Miles Orvell (Author)

From scientific and documentary photography to the more purely aesthetic, the camera has become a part of American culture at every level. Photography in America explores the medium from a variety of angles--portrait, landscape, photojournalism, documentary, creative digital photography, and postmodern critique of the image--in order to help students understand its impact and meaning. Organized by genres and modes, this text traces the history of a medium considered central to American culture by examining its different uses, going back to its beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century and looking forward to its future.

Author Biography

Miles Orvell is Professor of English and American studies at Temple University; and affiliated Professor of Art History, Tyler School of Art (Temple). He is the prize-winning author of The Real Thing: Imitation and Authenticity in American Culture, 1880-1940, which appeared in a twenty-fifth anniversary edition in 2014. He is also the author of After the Machine: Visual Arts and the Erasing of Cultural Boundaries (1995); John Vachon's America: Photographs and Letters from the Depression to World War II (2003); and The Death and Life of Main Street: Small Towns in American Memory, Space, and Community (2012). Orvell served as Editor in Chief of the Encyclopedia of American Studies Online, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, from 2004 to 2011. In 2009, he received the Bode-Pearson Prize for lifetime achievement, awarded by the American Studies Association.