Fred Ritchin: Bending the Frame - Aperture Ideas: Writers and Artists on Photography Paperback

Book Synopsis

How can contemporary image makers promote new thinking and make a difference in the world?

Bending the Frame, Fred Ritchin's third book on the future of the photographic medium, immerses the reader in the complex new ecosystem of the image and poses a series of critical questions that are relevant to today's image makers and readers alike. He begins by asking: "What do we want from this media revolution? Not just where is it bringing us, but where do we want to go? When the pixels start to settle, where do we think we should be in relationship to media-as producers, subjects, viewers? Since all media inevitably change us, how do we want to be changed?"

To help us consider possible answers, Ritchin provides historical grounding for alternative modes of visual storytelling as well as a host of new and emerging strategies to explore the world in more complex, thoughtful, and useful ways. If there are some one billion people roaming the world with cellphone cameras, he asks, what might the role of the professional photographer be? Might there be an urgent need for a metaphotography that contextualizes and makes sense of the myriad images already online? More pointedly, if there is a photography of war, shouldn't there also be a photography of peace?

Review Quotes

"Bending the Frame is a vigorous wake-up call to photojournalists to innovate or die." -Jeremy Lybarger, Mother Jones

"This is a new photography for a new world, one that aims to help us all become something better than we have been by using the tools at almost everyone's disposal." --Omar Willey, Seattle Star

"Does photojournalism matter? By Ritchin's account, its role has shifted but not shrunk in our media-saturated world." --Jack Crager, American Photo

"This volume takes readers through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole into the surrealistic world of photojournalism and its history, uses, effects, and possibly its future." --L.L. Scarth, Choice

"If you want a book that will make you think, this one's for you. And if I were creating a reading list for a photography enthusiast, this engaging and challenging book would be at the top." --Jenny Montgomery, Exposure