Pictures made by a lens are inextricably linked to the real world—the world the photographer not only sees but lives in and thinks about. The most ambitious photographs (in an earlier time one might confidently have said the greatest photographs) recognize that an understanding of the identities of things, and of their relationships, is as important as the harmonious combination of the shapes these things make when projected by a lens onto a flat surface. Starting from this premise, and in elegant and incisive prose, Jerry Thompson in Truth and Photography explores the many-leveled relationship between seeing and thinking. The book reproduces (in duotone) and the essays discuss some twenty photographs—some as well known as any the medium has produced, some more obscure, and some never before published. Mr. Thompson's discussions of pictures and picture-taking occasions are not strictly historical, nor are they concerned only with theoretical considerations. They do not rely exclusively on the author's thirty-year experience as a working photographer, nor are they confined to the medium of photography. Rather, Mr. Thompson employs multiple perspectives, usually in the same essay and often on a single picture. His examinations are penetrating, sustained, allusive, and frequently thrilling. They represent not settled explanations but living thought.
Jerry L. Thompson has been a working professional photographer since 1973. He studied at the University of Texas and at Yale, has held Guggenheim and NEA fellowships, and has been photographer in residence in the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His pictures may be found in the permanent collections of major American museums. His other books include The Last Years of Walker Evans and, with Susan M. Vogel, Closeup: Lessons in the Art of Seeing African Art. He lives in Amenia, New York.
Table of Contents
Part 1 Introduction 3 Part 2 Truth and Photography 17 Part 3 Thinking and Feeling 49 Part 4 The Light on Eighth Street 109 Part 5 Afterword 165 Part 6 Index 167 7 Photographs follow page 100
What People are Saying About This
Michael More
"Thompson's portraits give dimension to vivacious, troubled people -- free of fanfare and artifice. His essay describes the experience fluently." —View Camera
Michael Lesy
Elegant and erudite personal essays—at times, lyric, at times, revelatory—written by one of the great, classical, American portrait photographers of this era. Move over Susan Sontag!
CHOICE
Thompson's essays are a lively, loving, and thought-provoking romp...to get at the very nature of photography.... Highly recommended.
