Welcome to the Curious Eye
I love photography and I love thoughtful writing on photography.
I’ve spent a lifetime in communications, but as I transition from working for others to working to please myself, I intend to use this site to share my thoughts and my photographs.
These are personal pictures. Most have no commercial value. I hope that a handful have artistic value, but at a minimum I hope they are interesting to look at.
Photography Book Archive
I am gradually trying to build an archive of brief summaries and reviews of photography books that others can use if they are curious about the art of photography.
If you are looking for “how to” books, you won’t find many here. But, if you are interested in the history of photography as a means of personal expression, and the criticism of such, there is a good chance you will find this interesting.
Book Reviews and Posts
Gordon Parks and the Farm Security Administration
For Black History month, I am featuring the work of four outstanding African-American Photographers. The first essay features Gordon Parks and his work at the Farm Security Administration.
Photography Visionaries
Photography Visionaries is a neat survey of 75 great photographers spanning the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.
Each photographer is represented by at least three of their best-known images, along with a concise, well-written and insightful summary of their significance.
Each essay/biography is a stand-alone document, so that readers need not move through the book in chronological order
The Ongoing Moment
Geoff Dyer’s “The Ongoing Moment” is a enjoyable, insightful meander through the common themes that have united and divided the artistic visions of great photographers.
Dyer has both a discerning eye and an encyclopedic familiarity with photographers and their backstories, which he uses to carefully weave context into their work.
See/Saw: Looking at Photographs
Many authors have tackled the idea of looking at photographs. The difference from this traditional approach is that in See/Saw we get a lot of Geoff Dyer as well. Dyer takes the artist’s background, significance and intent as a starting point, but uses his essays to expound on his own observations. In a sense, the book might be just as easily titled See/Saw: Geoff Dyers Looks at Photographs and Tells You What He Sees.
