Bending the Frame: Photojournalism, Documentary, and the Citizen Paperback – Illustrated, June 30, 2013

I wanted to like this book upon purchasing it, as with many other Aperture publications. They tend to angle towards the philosophical aspect of photography, and that's what I like these days. I don't need to read endless how-to guides written by photographers-turned-teachers, and I haven't really dipped my toes too far into volumes that present photographic work in a top-quality setting. The exception being Dan Winters's Road To Seeing, which is part philosophy, part presentation, and all excellent. So I had high hopes in picking up an Aperture book on photojournalism and documentary photography.I was probably expecting too much, certainly not the same vein as the author went for with this book. Rather than really talking about the philosophy of documentary and journalistic photography, it is really an exhaustingly-researched (and footnoted) report on the declining value of traditional photojournalism. The author points out both the media's declining interest in still images and the shortcomings in said still images in conveying a nuanced view of issues. This is his primary preoccupation for the major part of the book. While he paints a very accurate picture of the dismal state of photojournalism in a world that seems to have passed on from considering a static image, his suggestions for how to move forward are surprisingly tentative and feeble. He suggests multimedia most of the time, with ideas like clicking in different parts of the picture, or sound or video files, etc. This struck me as being very uninspired.Honestly, this book brought me flashbacks from an undergraduate creative writing course which I took some years ago. The instructor had to take a medical leave directly prior to the course beginning, so we had a substitute teacher for the entire course. She began on a track which we all more or less expected from the class and looked forward to, but midway through decided to swing the entire course in a multimedia direction, once we had all become invested in our writing projects for the class. The problem was that this teacher had no real idea of what multimedia was, giving us class activities ranging from sound files to PowerPoint presentations to tell stories. It was a case of someone who didn't really understand what makes multimedia powerful trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. There was no creative reason to go the route she wanted us to go. The ideas in this book are similar - "multimedia" as an end to itself, without a clear reason why a given idea made sense with the material. No creative vision.I might be a little too hard on the author, who really did research his positions very thoroughly. This book feels more like an extensive journalistic report than anything else. He identifies the problem very well - but he doesn't have the answer, necessarily, to correct it. I believe he'd freely admit this. But in the end it made the book rather disappointing from my point of view. For someone steeped in the photojournalistic world, instead of trying to understand it from the outside, this may be a more satisfying read.

A sterling book to read, although I do thing it needs some improvement. No doubt the author is a well renowned writer and all, but I feel the prose would have been better improve the flow as the text felt very complex.Still it was a very good book as it asked and answered the many questions facing journalism's many challenges such as the diminished readership of newspapers and how new media such as citizen journalism seem to provide up to date news through photos taken cellphone.I also loved the fact the author had included many real world examples of projects that are happening to make use of new media to bring out change through journalism instead of talking about theories as some other books have done so.While a short read (six chapters) but the font is terribly small allowing a lot of text to be packed into a single page, making for a long read.A good book to get an up to date understanding of today's state of journalism due to new media, it even makes mentioned of the Arab spring as well as many other current events. Although I suspect this book will have little relevance a few more years down the road once the ramifications mentioned in the book have had time to settled and the outcomes have been properly analysed.

Fine book deserving of 5 stars but marred, as others have noted, by an unusually small typeface. Aperture, the publisher, should be ashamed of the size of the typeface and should apologize to the author. I'm guessing a Kindle edition would not suffer from this issue (I read the paperback edition).

Well written, well articulated ideas about photography. Ritchin raises questions and opens the discussion to actually finding answers. I would recommend this to anyone serious about the progression of photographs.

You will learn a lot but it is heavy reading so if you're looking for a thriller to read on vacation this is not your book.

Some great ideas to use for discussion starters and different ways of thinking of documentary work. Not a fast read.

Excellent book just what i was specting ,thank you

I really admire Fred Ritchin's perspective on photography.

Great Book

Inside every photographer is a closet photojournalist. We each yearn to capture that single frame that will change minds and change the course of history. We remember the photographs that moved us, the ones that we can still picture in our minds today the ones that helped end wars or advanced civil rights. These used to be taken by professional photographers and were published on the front page of newspapers or in news magazines, but all this has changed due to technology. The day of the newspaper and news magazine is nearly over, and neither employ many photographers today, not when technology has created millions of capable video or still photographers.This is not a "how to" book for amateur photographers but perhaps a "what to" book. What kind of shots should amateur photographers take and how can they get them noticed in a world where millions of images are created daily. In part it is an updating and retelling of the standards of integrity and honesty to which old school photographers were held, and part an exploration of what the future of photojournalism might hold. It took me longer to read than I expected because I kept stopping to think about what the author had written. Even if you just take photographs of the locals during your foreign vacations, there is something in this book that you need to read.

Richtin è la mente più lucida del campo in questo momento di grande incertezza e transizione. Leggerlo è illuminante. Chiaramente, per addetti ai lavori.

It's a well done reserch about the "hot" subject of real and fiction on photography realm; it's a must reading for those whom study imagine and representation... and so

Must read for photographer! Brilliant