The revolution caused by artificial intelligence in terms of what a photograph can and cannot do is profound. This book looks at photography's strengths, what it has meant for individuals and for society, its massive transformations caused by a variety of factors in the digital age, and the newer possibilities for image making. These include old and new media, with an emphasis on synthetic imaging as both a positive and terrifying development. In 1840, a year after photography's invention, the painter Paul Delaroche exclaimed, "From now on, painting is dead." Photography was quicker and cheaper as a representational medium and more realistic, its invention also liberated painters to become much more adventurous, embracing approaches that included impressionism, cubism, minimalism, and abstract expressionism. So too photographers are being challenged today. Many have responded with new strategies, but more innovation is needed. Can photographers be as radically expansive and revolutionary as painters were? Can they preserve or even expand the photograph's role in society as a credible witness? Can the photographic image morph into forms previously unimagined? The Synthetic Eye is about this transformative revolution. How can synthetic imagery be utilized to amplify our understanding of ourselves and our worlds? Can an alternative photography deepen and expand the medium's previous reach? What are the pitfalls? How will our senses of the real, the possible, and the actual be affected?

After Photography examines the myriad ways in which the digital revolution has fundamentally altered the way we receive visual information, from photos of news events taken by ordinary people on cell phones to the widespread use of image surveillance. In a world beset by critical problems and ambiguous boundaries, Fred Ritchin argues that it is time to begin energetically exploring the possibilities created by digital innovations and to use them to better understand our rapidly changing world.

Ritchin one of our most influential commentators on photography investigates the future of visual media as the digital revolution transforms images into a hypertextual medium, fundamentally changing the way we conceptualize the world. Simultaneously, the increased manipulation of photographs makes photography suspect as reliable documentation, raising questions about its role in recounting personal and public histories. In the tradition of John Berger and Susan Sontag, Ritchin analyzes photography's failings and reveals untapped potentials for the medium."

The first complete illustrated bibliography of 1,000 iconic photobooks created by members of the renowned photo agency This fascinating in-depth survey brings Magnum's history alive through the genre of the photobook - an essential vehicle for photographers to share their work. Its pages include unpublished behind-the-scenes material, together with ephemera from the photographers' archives about the making of their books. With an introduction by Fred Ritchin and texts by Carole Naggar, this book explores the evolution of the photobook, as well as the important role that Magnum has played in the history of documentary photography.

One of our most influential commentators on photography investigates the future of visual media as the digital revolution transforms images, changing the way we conceptualize the world. From photos of news events taken on cell phones to the widespread use of image surveillance, digital media has fundamentally altered the way we receive visual information. Simultaneously, the increased manipulation of photographs has made photography suspect as reliable documentation, raising questions about its role in recounting personal and public histories. In a world beset by critical problems and ambiguous boundaries, Ritchin argues that it is time to begin energetically exploring possibilities created by technological innovations, and to use them to better understand our rapidly changing world.

In 1984 Sebastiao Salgado began what would be a fifteen-month project of photographing the drought-stricken Sahel region of Africa in the countries of Chad, Ethiopia, Mali, and Sudan, where approximately one million people died from extreme malnutrition and related causes. Working with the humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, Salgado documented the enormous suffering and the great dignity of the refugees. This early work became a template for his future photographic projects about other afflicted people around the world. Since then, Salgado has again and again sought to give visual voice to those millions of human beings who, because of military conflict, poverty, famine, overpopulation, pestilence, environmental degradation, and other forms of catastrophe, teeter on the edge of survival. Beautifully produced, with thoughtful supporting narratives by Orville Schell, Fred Ritchin, and Eduardo Galeano, this first U.S. edition brings some of Salgado's earliest and most important work to an American audience for the first time. Twenty years after the photographs were taken, "Sahel: The End of the Road" is still painfully relevant. Born in Brazil in 1944, Sebastiao Salgado studied economics in Sao Paulo and Paris and worked in Brazil and England. While traveling as an economist to Africa, he began photographing the people he encountered. Working entirely in a black-and-white format, Salgado highlights the larger meaning of what is happening to his subjects with an imagery that testifies to the fundamental dignity of all humanity while simultaneously protesting its violation by war, poverty, and other injustices. 'The planet remains divided,' Salgado explains. 'The first world in a crisis of excess, the third world in a crisis of need.' This disparity between the haves and the have-nots is the subtext of almost all of Salgado's work.

The older paradigm for photojournalists was to simply record events, with the hope—and frequently the expectation—that people and their governments would be moved to respond to the injustices pictured; as witnessed by the impact of certain images during the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Given evolving media and political climates, however, including the billions of images now available online from all kinds of sources, the purpose and effectiveness of media, in particular of visual journalism, has been called into question. Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and Citzenship, by author and critic Fred Ritchin, addresses the new and emerging potentials for visual media to impact society. Ritchin examines the historical and contemporary uses of photography and related media to inspire social change. From the unintended consequences of “citizen journalism” and leaked images such as those from Abu Ghraib, to the new strategies by visual journalists and the targeted human rights projects by documentary photographers, the intention of this book is to provide a much-needed critical approach to the issues involved in such efforts. Also encompassing online efforts, uses of video, and a diverse range of books and exhibitions, Bending the Frame aims for as wide-ranging and farreaching a discussion as possible, asking the critical question: how can images promote new thinking and make a difference in the world?