John Szarkowski
Museum of Modern Art, $24.95

At a time when photography has penetrated the innermost sanctum of the art market and the battle over whether it is “art” has finally been won, it is instructive to revisit this classic photobook, which sets forth, in many pictures and few words, just what it is that makes photography distinct from other media. Based on a 1964 exhibition mounted by former MoMA photography curator John Szarkowski, this book has been out of print since 1980. The reissue should be welcomed by those who remember it and studied by anyone who wants to understand this unique art form. (It’s also a triumph of the art of book-making, the original design and typography by Joseph Bourke Del Valle having been tweaked for production reasons by Amanda Washburn in a way that does no damage to the original.)

To make his points, Szarkowski has chosen more than 100 black-and-white photographs without regard either for time period or individual greatness. Directly opposite a Lee Friedlander picture of a TV screen in a motel room is a mid-19th-century soft-focus study of a woman by Charles Nègre. The cover image is an interior by an anonymous photographer that looks amazingly like a Walker Evans. The book is thematically divided into five parts: The Thing Itself, The Detail, The Frame, Time and Vantage Point. The pictures in each section demonstrate how the look of photographs is affected by the process of making them. This technology’s ability to freeze time and see more—or less—than the eye can, the fact that it is somewhat limited by what is “out there” in the world, and its availability for use by people who have not studied art (or even photography) make its results unique—and uniquely compelling. —John Dorfman