Photography: The Definitive Visual History
Tom Ang
Photography: The Definitive Visual History by Tom Ang covers 1825 to the present. It covers a wide variety from the “technology” of the time to the historical events that helped shape photography and the ways it was utilized through science or documenting history. In the back they have “A to Z Photographers” that gives you snippets and even some photographs from prolific photographers throughout history (which I love!). This resource is a great resource for a college age student through adults wanting to learn about the impact of photography in history in addition to how photography changed throughout the years from film to digital. It gives such a great range of comprehensive information about the history of photography. The author is Tom Ang and he is a very prolific photographer and photography academic. The managing editor is Garth Jones. The subject matter is the history of photography and includes lots of incredible examples of prints throughout history. I actually used this book in undergrad which is how I knew it was an incredible resource. The first edition was printed in 2014 but the one I found at the Wheaton Public Library was a new edition published in 2022. So they did update it eight years later to include more modern photographers. The resource is organized in timeline order. There is a table of contents, a list of information about photographers, a glossary and an index to help you more easily navigate to the specific information you are looking for if you don’t want to leisurely read through. It is often described as a “coffee-table book”, I believe because of all the photographs throughout, however, I would say that this is almost like a photography encyclopedia. Within each “snapshot” of time they include the technology of the time, the world history happening and then a photographer of that time with photographs of their work. For example 1880-1914 focus on photography being considered a tool of science as it was being used for criminal evidence and studying motion. I already knew about this source but actually stumbled upon it through the LibGuides source you gave us. I searched “history of photography” in the Wheaton Public Library catalog and found A World History of Photography and when I clicked this book I realized it was from 1997 and not a great resource. Then underneath that they have a “Similar Titles” section and it listed Photography: The Definitive Visual History and I knew that this was an amazing source. So I was thrilled to see that it had a new edition in 2022.
