Degrees of Guidance: Essays on Twentieth-Century Photography brings together a selection of essays written between 1969 and 1987 by one of the foremost historians of photography at work today. Arranged roughly chronologically, the thematic and monographic essays collectively examine a variety of trends of photographic style and aesthetics, and the artists, primarily American, who developed them over an eighty-year period; they also reflect the growing acceptance of photography as an art medium - among critics, private collectors, and museums - in this period. Through the study of such topics as photographic portraiture and the nature of pictorialist vision in photography, as well as his essays on such artists as Alfred Stieglitz, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, and Jerry Uelsmann, Peter C. Bunnell effectively directs attention to the fundamental creativity, intentionality, and significance of personal expression in the work of the committed photographic artist.
pt. 1. A photographic vision/pictorial photography, 1889-1923 -- Alfred Stieglitz and Camera work -- Clarence H. White, the reverence for beauty -- pt. 2. Observations on collecting photographs -- Why photography now? -- The current acceptance of photography -- pt. 3. Walter Evans -- Robert Frank, Forth of July-Jay, New York -- Diane Arbus -- Lisette Model -- pt. 4. Taken from life, photographic portraiture -- pt. 5. -- Brassaï, the secret Paris of the 30's -- Wright Morris -- Elliott Erwitt -- Edward Weston on photography -- Barbara Morgan -- Aaron Siskind, 75th anniversary -- Harry Callahan -- pt. 6. Photography as printmaking -- Observations on photographic sensitivity -- Photography into sculpture -- pt. 7. Jerry N. Uelsmann -- Jerry N. Uelsmann, silver meditations -- John Pfahl, altered landscapes -- Lynton Wells, paintings, 1971-1978 -- Ray K. Metzker -- Paul Caponigro, photography 25 years -- Emmet Gowin / photographs, 1966-1983 -- Nina Alexander, photographs.
Photography--United States--History--20th century