Book review: ‘Photography: a very short introduction’ by Steve Edwards

As Steve Edwards makes clear in the introduction, this book cannot hope to cover in any detail such a massive and influential topic as photography. So he sensibly doesn’t even try.

On the whole, it’s an interesting read, although, given the space constraints, I was surprised certain skippable topics received the coverage they did. But this is only a minor complaint: Edwards covers many interesting topics, including: ‘documentary’ versus ‘art’ photography; vernacular photography; how photographs can be haunted by absences; how captions can change our interpretation of photographs; and whether photography should attempt to convey narratives.

Plenty of food for thought.