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Critical Photography
Series Editor: Alfredo Cramerotti
To send a proposal for a volume in the series, please contact [email protected].
Since 1986, Intellect has provided a vital space for widening critical debate in new and emerging subjects. As a leading academic publisher in the fields of creative practice and popular culture, Intellect has a strong list of visual culture and contemporary art focussed publications. We aim to offer a platform for photographers, writers and creative artists to present and critically reflect on their work and to produce original, adventurous projects.
Critical Photography seeks to encourage visual and textual reflection on/with contemporary photography; to marry photographic work and critical texts, representing a balance between the two forms. The series is at the forefront in expanding the notion of critical debate: each book investigates a theoretical issue via two systems of representation, placing them at equal level. Neither text that 'explains' pictures nor photography that 'illustrates' text, the series addresses aspects of our being and becoming in a thought-provoking and aesthetically stunning form and content.
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The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine
Using both photographs and written narratives The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine provides a depiction of the lives and struggles faced by Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories on the West Bank in particular the South Hebron Hills and the Jordan Valley. It sheds light on issues including house demolitions conflicts between Palestinian shepherds or farmers and Israeli settlers soldiers and police the daily struggles brought about by the occupation's efforts to displace Palestinians from their land and the resilience and bravery required to endure these conditions. This moving book conveys the beauty of the landscape the essence of the language the value of friendships and the richness of a threatened way of life.
Voices of activists both Palestinian and Jewish are brought into focus. The historical context that generated present realities in Palestine is outlined briefly as well as the history of the authors’ partnership. Their perspective mirrors extensive years of involvement in peace and human rights activism in Palestine. It also captures the ongoing dialogue between the two authors who have experienced together the continually renewed astonishment that comes with such experiences and encounters.

Fortunes of War
Photography in Alter Space
Eric Lesdema’s photographic series Fortunes of War was awarded the UN Nikon World Prize in 1997. Originally a series of fifteen images this extended edit includes 83 colour photos accompanied by a series of essays by leading academics in the field. The essays explore ideas raised by the prescient nature of the work offering a highly original and engaging debate about its alternative approach to documentary photography which views photography as an alternate space with the potential to project events rather than record them. In exploring an approach that cuts against the traditional concept central to documentary photography since its inception the book thus raises important questions about twenty-first century interpretations and applications of photography and media. With thought-provoking research and a diverse array of essay contributions Fortunes of War proposes new lines of interdisciplinary investigation reflection and inquiry.
Nikon Award info: https://www.artimage.org.uk/artists/l/eric-lesdema/

Photography as Critical Practice
Notes on Otherness
The ‘other’ is a topic of great interest within and across contemporary photographic practice and theory yet it remains neglected outside the now well-established field of postcolonial studies. This volume brings together photography and written essays that relate to aspects of otherness and visual work. Presented together the images and critical writings work in concert to construct a new social perspective on questions of otherness and alterity and to highlight photography as a form of critical practice.
In a departure from existing conceptions of otherness in postcolonial discourse Photography as Critical Practice places emphasis on the human condition not as a liberal concept but as something formed and framed by a broader dimension of social sexual and cultural otherness.
Including contributions by Elina Ruka Katrin Kivimaa Parveen Adams and Liz Wells the book provides a fascinating new vista on the otherness of photography.

Theater of War
For five years Meredith Davenport photographed and interviewed men who play live-action games based on contemporary conflicts such as a recreation of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden that took place thousands of miles from the conflict zone on a campground in Northern Virginia. Her images speak about the way that trauma and conflict penetrate a culture sheltered from the horrors of war. Bringing together a series of two dozen photographs with essays discussing and analysing the influence of the media particularly photographs and video on the culture at large and how conflict is 'discussed' in the visual realm Theater of War is a unique look at the influence of contemporary conflicts and their omnipresence in the media on popular culture. Written by an experienced photojournalist who has covered a variety of human rights issues worldwide this book is an essential addition to the library of anyone interested in the confluence of war and media.

The Culture of Photography in Public Space
From privacy concerns regarding Google Street View to surveillance photography’s association with terrorism and sexual predators photography as an art has become complex terrain upon which anxieties about public space have been played out. Yet the photographic threat is not limited to the image alone. A range of social technological and political issues converge in these rising anxieties and affect the practice circulation and consumption of contemporary public photography today. The Culture of Photography in Public Space collects essays and photographs that offer a new response to these restrictions the events and the anxieties that give rise to them.

The Blind
The Blind might be the answer. Developed for naturalists by the Institute of Critical Zoologists the Blind is a camouflage cloak that works on the principle that an object vanishes from sight if light rays striking it are not reflected but are instead forced to flow around as if it were not there. In fifty stunning color photographs this volumeshows the cloak tested in nature reserves grasslands and urban environments. By taking the human out of the picture The Blind offers an opportunity to explore how we see animals in photography.

Photography, Narrative, Time
Imaging our Forensic Imagination
Providing a wide-ranging account of the narrative properties of photographs Greg Battye focuses on the storytelling power of a single image rather than the sequence. Drawing on ideas from painting drawing film video and multimedia he applies contemporary research and theories drawn from cognitive science and psychology to the analysis of photographs. Using genuine forensic photographs of crime scenes and accidents the book mines human drama and historical and sociological authenticity to argue for the centrality of the perception and representation of time in photographic narrativity.

On Perfection
An Artists' Symposium

Photocinema
The Creative Edges of Photography and Film
Taking as its starting point the notion of photocinema – or the interplay of the still and moving image – the photographs interviews and critical essays in this volume explore the ways in which the two media converge and diverge expanding the boundaries of each in interesting and unexpected ways. The book’s innovative approach to film and photography produces a hybrid 'third space' where the whole becomes much more than the sum of its individual parts encouraging viewers to expand their perceptions to begin to understand the bigger picture. Photocinema represents a nuanced theoretical and practical exploration of the experimental cinematic techniques exemplified by artists like Wim Wenders and Hollis Frampton. In addition to new critical essays by Victor Burgin and David Campany the book includes interviews with Martin Parr Hannah Starkey and Aaron Schuman and a portfolio of photographs from various new and established artists.

Contingency in Madagascar
PHOTOGRAPHY • ENCOUNTERS • WRITING
As they set off for Madagascar in 2003 photographer Max Pam and writer Stephen Muecke adopted as their guiding principle the idea of contingency—central to which is the conscious embrace of risk and chance. In doing so they established a new aesthetic in which image and text are inextricably linked to the notion of possibility. This stunning collection of photos and essays is the result of their vision collectively illustrating the beauty and wisdom on offer in one of the world’s poorest nations. A contribution to the wave of new ethnography exemplified by Michael Taussig and Kathleen Stewart these encounters with events images and experimental writing dramatize thoughts and feelings in the ongoing construction of place.

Photography and Landscape

Unmapping the City
Perspectives of Flatness
Unmapping the City the first title in the new Intellect series Critical Photography features photographs shot between 2004 and 2008 in different cities around the world. The images are linked by their shared attempts to define a two-dimensional approach to a three-dimensional built reality and to address spatial representation ritual and urbanity through art. In representing the cityscape through a flat texture of lines and bold colors the reader is drawn into a conversation about the interplay between reality and its representation. This volume significantly challenges and expands the critical discourse on photography and text and will be of interest to artists curators photographers architects and critical theorists.