The architects of modern photography: 4 thinkers – from Susan Sontag to John Berger – who taught us how to perceive

Indian Express

11 hours ago

For writers, books are often the primary source of inspiration, a collection of words and sentences that shape thought and imagination. Yet, the world beyond books can be equally compelling. For many creatives, the outdoors and the lens of a camera have become powerful tools of observation. Once considered an art dependent on new locations and unfamiliar landscapes, photography is increasingly understood as a discipline of repeated encounters, a way of seeing the ordinary anew.
As emerging photographers gain recognition for their ability to capture meaning in the everyday, several books continue to guide enthusiasts and professionals alike. These works encourage readers not only to engage with photography but to cultivate deeper ways of seeing, no matter where they are. Here are four influential titles that expand the understanding of photography beyond its cultural frame.
Photography from the 20th century and John Berger's collection of words bring into perspective the immediate fusion of popular and uncollected essays on famous photographers such as W Eugene Smith and Henri Cartier Benson, who represented rawness, intensity and fire in the photographs they created. From direction and technicalities to the essential daily observations that look like the ordinary, this book contains an evolving perspective. This book does not lay down the the rules to abide by, it gives you growth, a retrospective in your journey to evolve not as a photographer but as an individual with growing curiosity.
Vineet Vohra's work first caught my eye, back in 2019, on Instagram when I had finally decided to start working with the genre of street photography which I had no idea about. Consequently, his work became an inspiration and his first monograph was released by Eyeshot Magazine. If you are thinking this is a manual of rules jumbled up together, it most certainly is not. One of the first books ever compiled on street photography by an Indian photographer, this books talks about exploring maximalism on the street. How finding ordinary scenes on the street are actually unique, and help in weaving stories that are often overlooked. Street photography is that one tool that rearranges the chaos in the sentence and offers a comma, in perspective. Vohra's compilation with his set of images does exactly that.
Although a reputed author, Susan Sontag wrote one of the most widely known books on photography. If you like a hint of literature dabbled with a little bit of magic, Sontag's work will attract you. With what started with the ability of Sontag to question in one essay, became a series of essays strung together to talk about the ability to understand the 'omnipresence' of the photographs. Her questioning about what photographs were, led her to explore the complex nature of photography. And here we had it, the esteem of a book of essays, from a talented woman, who etched her words into two significant worlds of literature and photography.
What fascinated me about this book is not its print, but that it alludes a sense of distinct bond, a shared love and respect between two extraordinarily talented people, an amalgamation of higher phenomenon, the integration of film and photography. The book is a compilation of Ghosh's body of work . In Manik Da: Memories of Satyajit Ray, a book of his reminiscences, Ghosh recalls his first experience of Ray's film making, during the shooting of a scene in Goopy Gyne Bagh Byne, 'in which drops of water drip from leaves and fall on Bagha's drum: 'I don't know what possessed me then. As if in a trance I felt my finger pressing the shutter on the camera. I finished both rolls of film.'