Photography Subject Guide

Reference books

Cotton, Charlotte. The Photograph as Contemporary Art. 3^rd ed. World of Art. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson, 2014 – TR 642 C68 2014 (print book)

Frizot, Michel. A New History of Photography. Köln: Könemann, 1998 – TR 15 B6813 1998 (print book)

Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A Cultural History. 4^th ed. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2020 – TR 15 M273 2014 (print book)

Peres, Michael R. Focal Encyclopedia of Photography: Digital Imaging, Theory and Applications, History, and Science. 4^th ed. N.p.: Focal Press, 2013 (eBook)

Wells, Liz. Photography: A Critical Introduction. 4^th ed. London: Routledge, 2009 – TR 145 P495 2009 (print book)

Photography books in the Library’s REFERENCE section (active link to a Sofia Discovery search for photography books in the Concordia Library's Reference section)

Theory & criticism

Bolton, Richard. The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of Photography. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989 – TR 642 C66 1989 (print book)

Elkins, James. Photography Theory. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007 (eBook)

Emerling, Jae. Photography: History and Theory. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012 – TR 187 E44 2012 (print book)

Lyons, Nathan, ed. Photographers on Photography: A Critical Anthology. Prentice-Hall Foundations of Modern Photography. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966 – TR 185 LP (print book)

Wells, Liz, ed. The Photography Reader: History and Theory. 2^nd ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2019 – TR 187 P56 2019 (print book)

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Photographic Criticism (active link for a Sofia Discover search for all books with the heading Photographic Criticism)

Technical books

Benson, Richard. The Printed Picture. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 2008 – TR 15 B46 2008 (print book)

Haist, Grant Milford. Modern Photographic Processing. Wiley Series on Photographic Science and Technology and the Graphic Arts. 2 vols. New York, NY: Wiley, 1979 – TR 287 H28 (print book)

Kingslake, Rudolf. A History of the Photographic Lens. Boston: Academic Press, 1989 – TR 270 K49 1989 (print book)

Lister, Martin. The Photographic Image in Digital Culture. 2^nd ed. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis, 2013 (eBook)

Mees, C.E. Kenneth. From Dry Plates to Ektachrome Film: A Story of Photographic Research. New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1961 – TR 15 M37 (print book)

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Photography – Handbooks, manuals, etc. (active link for a Sofia Discovery search using the subject heading Photography - Handbooks, manuals, etc.) 

BIPOC representation in photography

Bright, Sheila Pree. 1960 Now: Photographs of Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter Protests. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2018 – E 185.61 B85 2018 (print book)

Duganne, Erina. The Self in Black and White: Race and Subjectivity in Postwar American Photography. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2010 – TR 23 D84 2010 (print book)

Pinney, Christopher, and Nicolas Peterson. Photography’s Other Histories. Objects/Histories. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003 – TR 15 P495 2003 (print book)

Strathman, Nicole Dawn. Through a Native Lens: American Indian Photography. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2020 (eBook)

Willis, Deborah. Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present. New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 2000 – TR 23 W55 2000 (print book)

Library of Congress Subject Headings: African American photographers ; Indian photographers ; Photographers, Black and Combined search for BIPOC photographers (active link to a Sofia Discovery search using these subject headings related to BIPOC photographers) and Combined search for BIPOC photography (active link to a Sofia Discovery for BIPOC subjects and photography)

Canadian photography

Cousineau-Levine, Penny. Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003 (eBook)

Greenhill, Ralph, and A.J. Birrell. Photography, 1839-1920. Toronto, ON: Coach House Press, 1979 – TR 26 G72 1979 (print book)

Kunard, Andrea, and Carol Payne. The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011 – TR 183 C85 2011 (print book)

Langford, Martha. Scissors, Paper, Stone: Expressions of Memory in Contemporary Photographic Art. Monteal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014 (eBook)

Langford, Martha. “A Short History of Photography, 1900-2000,” in The Visual Arts in Canada: The Twentieth Century, edited by Anne Whitelaw, Brian Foss, and Sandra Paikowsky, 278-311. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010 – N 6545 V5885 2010 (print book)

Payne, Carol. The Official Picture: The National Film Board of Canada’s Still Photography Division and the Image of Canada, 1941-1971. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013 (eBook)

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Photography – Canada (active link to a Sofia Discovery search for Photography - Canada)

Photobooks (about)

Di Bello, Patricia, Colette E. Wilson, and Shamoon Zamir. The Photobook: From Talbot to Ruscha and Beyond. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012 – TR 501 P468 2012 (print book)

Dugan, Thomas. Photography Between Covers: Interviews with Photo-Bookmakers. Rochester, NY: Light Impressions, 1979 – TR 147 D83 (print book)

Parr, Martin, and Gerry Badger. The Photobook: A History. 3 vols. London: Phaidon, 2004-2014 – N 7433.3 P39 2004 (print book)

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Photobooks (active link to a Sofia Discovery search for the heading Photobooks)
Library of Congress Subject Heading and Genre search: Photography AND Artists' books (active link to a Sofia Discovery search for Photography and Artists' books)

Photography journals & magazines (online)

Aperture (eJournal)

British Journal of Photography (eJournal)

Ciel Variable / CV (eJournal)

Études photographiques (eJournal) ceased publication in 2017

History of Photography (eJournal)

Photographies (eJournal)

Photography & Culture (eJournal)

Prefix Photo (print journal)

Visual Studies (eJournal)

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Photography, Artistic – Periodicals (active link to Sofia Discovery search for art photography periodicals)

Online resources outside of Concordia University

ASX: An Epicenter for Art & Photography
AMERICAN SUBURB X (website)

Centre collégial de développement de matérial didactique (CCDMD)
Mise au point sur la photographie québécoise (online resource) - documenting the general history of photography in Québec

Getty Conservation Institute
“Fundamentals of the Conservation of Photographs.” Los Angeles, CA: Getty Conservation Institute. Last modified May 2011. https://www.getty.edu/conservation/publications_resources/teaching/photographic_materials.html (online resource)

Stulik, Dusan, and Art Kaplan. “The Atlas of Analytical Signatures of Photographic Processes.” Los Angeles, CA: Getty Conservation Institute, 2013, http://hdl.handle.net/10020/gci_pubs/atlas_analytical (online resource)

Internet Archive
Photography periodicals (website)

McCord Museum
Collections (database)

Paperbase

Online interactive visual platform (database) for exploring and analyzing the world's largest collection of photographic paper. Designed and built by the Lens Media Lab (website) at Yale University.

National Gallery of Canada
Photostories Canada (website)

Nineteenth-century Canadian Photographically Illustrated Books

Online digital collection (online resource)

Victoria & Albert Museum
Online collections (database) including many early photographic artefacts)

Call numbers and subject headings

Library of Congress call numbers for Photography

Library of Congress Subject Headings for Photography (selection)

Art and photography (active link to Sofia Discovery search)

Photographers (active link to Sofia Discovery search)

Photography (active link to Sofia Discovery search)

Photography – Canada (active link to Sofia Discovery search)

Photography, Artistic (active link to Sofia Discovery search)

Guide prepared by Michel Hardy-Vallée, Ph.D. (Art History), Visiting Scholar at the Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, in collaboration with Concordia University Library