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To Photograph Is to Learn How to Die: An Essay with Digressions
A book-length essay about photography’s unique ability to ease the ache of human mortality Drawing on the writings of Wallace Stevens, Marilynne Robinson and other poets, artists, musicians and thinkers, Brooklyn-based photographer Tim Carpenter (born 1968) argues passionately―in one main essay and a series of lively digressions―that photography is unique among the arts in its capacity for easing the fundamental ache of our mortality; for managing the breach that separates the self from all that is not the self; for enriching one’s sense of freedom and personhood; and for cultivating meaning in an otherwise meaningless reality.
Printed in three colors that reflect the various “voices� of the book, the text design follows several channels of thought, inviting various approaches to reading. A unique and instructive contribution to the literature on photography, Carpenter’s research offers both a timely polemic and a timeless resource for those who use a camera.
Printed in three colors that reflect the various “voices� of the book, the text design follows several channels of thought, inviting various approaches to reading. A unique and instructive contribution to the literature on photography, Carpenter’s research offers both a timely polemic and a timeless resource for those who use a camera.
231 pages, Paperback
Published January 24, 2023
69 people are currently reading
816 people want to read
About the author
Tim Carpenter
25Ìýbooks4ÌýfollowersTim Carpenter is a photographer and writer based in Brooklyn and central Illinois. He received his MFA in Photography from Hartford Art School in 2012, and has studied with Alec Soth, Ron Jude, Mark Steinmetz and Doug Dubois.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
September 28, 2023
I tried really hard to finish this but after months of picking it up I'm done. It made the rounds in the small contemporary fine-art photography world so I actually spent what I thought was a lot of money for this very small book ($20) since I do enjoy books about photography. I even worked for a photographer that gave a blurb on the back! But at a certain point I was just annoyed every time I tried to read this. It's full of tangents that go nowhere and I stopped following the footnote threads halfway through. I can't imagine using so many words and quotes to say what amounts to a few very simple concepts; roughly, photographs exist out of time (and space), also they can have different meanings, also so did you know a photo could be like a poem?? There's more to it probably, but my brain literally stops working halfway through most of these paragraphs about what imo are already generally understood and even cliche truisms about photography and I can't continue. It feels like at a certain point he just can't see the forest for the trees and is repeating himself.
I'm not trying to get too personal with this but I feel like the author is overcompensating for his photography. It's easy to see where his philosophies and visual work connect. The two arguably couldn't exist without each other. That's how it is in the art world too. If you couch your work in enough word salad, presto! I can't hate the game, I guess, and if I was making hundreds of black-and-white photos of grass and dirt and roads I might need to explain myself too.
I don't have anything against Wilco or David Foster Wallace but this book is full of quotes from both and the fragmented style seems to be a weak copy of the latter and ultimately this whole thing just reeks of bro culture in the photo world. I listened to a podcast with the author before reading this where he says his next book is an argument with Susan Sontag's On Photography. I mean, yes, that book is old hat at this point but it's one of my favorites and wow, good luck with that, buddy. The confidence of dudes like this to rattle on and on and say so little and feel like it's profound, I feel like I'm back at art school. To think you could even go toe-to-toe with SUSAN fucking SONTAG both blows my mind and is sadly unsurprising. I didn't want to come onto Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ and be such a hater but no one reads these anyway.
I admittedly think writing a thousand words about what it means to take a picture is a bit of a fool's errand and don't really think there's that much philosophizing to do at the end of the day. I'd rather just be making cool pictures or looking at them. That doesn't mean I don't think about them at all because believe me, when I'm working I think a lot about photographs, but mostly about their structural and contextual roles within society and the ways they are percieved and digested in culture. I wasn't expecting that from this book, given the title, but I don't even fully understand what the point of this was and honestly I think the title says it best. No notes. Should've just put on a t-shirt and stopped there.
Selling this book because I can't even recommend it to any of my photographer friends.
I'm not trying to get too personal with this but I feel like the author is overcompensating for his photography. It's easy to see where his philosophies and visual work connect. The two arguably couldn't exist without each other. That's how it is in the art world too. If you couch your work in enough word salad, presto! I can't hate the game, I guess, and if I was making hundreds of black-and-white photos of grass and dirt and roads I might need to explain myself too.
I don't have anything against Wilco or David Foster Wallace but this book is full of quotes from both and the fragmented style seems to be a weak copy of the latter and ultimately this whole thing just reeks of bro culture in the photo world. I listened to a podcast with the author before reading this where he says his next book is an argument with Susan Sontag's On Photography. I mean, yes, that book is old hat at this point but it's one of my favorites and wow, good luck with that, buddy. The confidence of dudes like this to rattle on and on and say so little and feel like it's profound, I feel like I'm back at art school. To think you could even go toe-to-toe with SUSAN fucking SONTAG both blows my mind and is sadly unsurprising. I didn't want to come onto Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ and be such a hater but no one reads these anyway.
I admittedly think writing a thousand words about what it means to take a picture is a bit of a fool's errand and don't really think there's that much philosophizing to do at the end of the day. I'd rather just be making cool pictures or looking at them. That doesn't mean I don't think about them at all because believe me, when I'm working I think a lot about photographs, but mostly about their structural and contextual roles within society and the ways they are percieved and digested in culture. I wasn't expecting that from this book, given the title, but I don't even fully understand what the point of this was and honestly I think the title says it best. No notes. Should've just put on a t-shirt and stopped there.
Selling this book because I can't even recommend it to any of my photographer friends.
May 22, 2024
Stream of consciousness in the mind of an ADHD photography critic - this is an average theoretical photography book, but in the most incoherent format ever cooked up. Main concept in black, digressions in red, semi-related quotes in blue, all running in tandem, not speaking to each other. Not worth the read.
October 3, 2023
I agree with the central premise of this tract (that photography allows us to experience a frailty/fragility that is central to our understanding of the limits between self and non-self) but the style was too overwrought and pretentious for me personally.
September 16, 2024
My most dog-eared and pencil marked book I own. I think there’s a lot of good wisdom here about the nature of art and its relationship to its artist, resisting personal projection onto your art, and there’s a ton of insight into Photography’s place in the realm of artistic works; how it’s similar and how it’s not to other forms.
The biggest comparison is to Poetry and though the book doesn’t make this exact comparison, it seems to me, after reading this, that Photography is to Poetry what Film/Video is to Prose. Photography and Poetry’s first aim is at an idea. And by abstracting that idea out through metaphor and imagery and technique/style, those ideas can flourish. Photography is unique however in that it has an immediate tension between what is real and what is not. People mistake photographs for reality all the time when they so often are not “real�. Motion Pictures or video contains this tension, too, but it lacks the immediacy of the “moment captured in time�. There’s no other context besides the image. What came before and what came after is not of concern. The photograph itself has a power, an ability to persuade the viewer of its reality, that is exclusive from the content of the photograph. And inherent to photography is a contemplation of the frailty of its and our own existence.
Anyways, I really dug it.
The biggest comparison is to Poetry and though the book doesn’t make this exact comparison, it seems to me, after reading this, that Photography is to Poetry what Film/Video is to Prose. Photography and Poetry’s first aim is at an idea. And by abstracting that idea out through metaphor and imagery and technique/style, those ideas can flourish. Photography is unique however in that it has an immediate tension between what is real and what is not. People mistake photographs for reality all the time when they so often are not “real�. Motion Pictures or video contains this tension, too, but it lacks the immediacy of the “moment captured in time�. There’s no other context besides the image. What came before and what came after is not of concern. The photograph itself has a power, an ability to persuade the viewer of its reality, that is exclusive from the content of the photograph. And inherent to photography is a contemplation of the frailty of its and our own existence.
Anyways, I really dug it.
January 16, 2025
I was so excited to read this. And now I'm angry about the experience of doing so.
Verbose to the point of incomprehensible. He blathers on and on (and on), tangents within tangents within tangents, never reaching any kind of conclusion. Or perhaps he reaches the titular conclusion on page 0 and then drives the point a hundred miles past home for nearly 300 more pages.
I figured "he must be onto something, right? I'm crazy for not getting it." Then I looked up his photographic work. Black and white pictures of roads. Or fields. Or roads and fields. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for subjective or niche forms of personal expression, but his writing and his photography both reek of ignorant and self-aggrandizing autofellatio. I have to assume he's merely a moderately successful con man. What a chump I am.
Avoid like the plague. I'd pay the same $20 I spent on this book to forget it ever entered my field of view.
Verbose to the point of incomprehensible. He blathers on and on (and on), tangents within tangents within tangents, never reaching any kind of conclusion. Or perhaps he reaches the titular conclusion on page 0 and then drives the point a hundred miles past home for nearly 300 more pages.
I figured "he must be onto something, right? I'm crazy for not getting it." Then I looked up his photographic work. Black and white pictures of roads. Or fields. Or roads and fields. Don't get me wrong; I'm all for subjective or niche forms of personal expression, but his writing and his photography both reek of ignorant and self-aggrandizing autofellatio. I have to assume he's merely a moderately successful con man. What a chump I am.
Avoid like the plague. I'd pay the same $20 I spent on this book to forget it ever entered my field of view.
April 20, 2025
What people said when I told them I was reading this book:
“That book is unreadable.�
“I put that book down—and never picked it up again.�
Not exactly the kind of motivation I was looking for.
And I'll say this: I did actually make it through. I even understood some of it.
But there's this thing about the format: It’s chaotic. The main text is in black, while side thoughts and quotes are scattered across the pages in red and blue. If you try to read everything at once, it's almost impossible to follow a single train of thought. The trick is to stick to the black text first, then circle back. Trust me� I try to avoid saying “circle back� at all costs, but in this case, it’s the only way the book felt remotely legible.
That said, I did enjoy the selection of quotes and the reflections on embracing the camera’s limitations.
“That book is unreadable.�
“I put that book down—and never picked it up again.�
Not exactly the kind of motivation I was looking for.
And I'll say this: I did actually make it through. I even understood some of it.
But there's this thing about the format: It’s chaotic. The main text is in black, while side thoughts and quotes are scattered across the pages in red and blue. If you try to read everything at once, it's almost impossible to follow a single train of thought. The trick is to stick to the black text first, then circle back. Trust me� I try to avoid saying “circle back� at all costs, but in this case, it’s the only way the book felt remotely legible.
That said, I did enjoy the selection of quotes and the reflections on embracing the camera’s limitations.
November 20, 2024
It might be because I'm attending a similar course while I'm not reading, but this book felt like the kind of experience you get when you're faced with a bad teacher - which is not to say a bad professional - who, albeit savvy, is just not good at teaching, and you have to put a real effort not to give up and send them to hell but instead squeeze out some good time out of them.
If Carpenter has done something good with this book, is to collect the quotes of a bunch of genuinely clever authors and put the one after the other. If there's some magic to it, is that they - these authors - sometimes look like they're talking to each other from column to column (a not-so-hidden trick). But what else is there? Out of 230 pages, there must be a maximum of ten paragraphs where we actually get something written by Carpenter. Everything is a quote. And I get the cheeky "nothing is original" claim, but.
But I've done this for an assignment in my first year MDes and I got burnt by a "cool. Self-indulgent but cool."
So, Tim: cool. Self-indulgent but cool.
If Carpenter has done something good with this book, is to collect the quotes of a bunch of genuinely clever authors and put the one after the other. If there's some magic to it, is that they - these authors - sometimes look like they're talking to each other from column to column (a not-so-hidden trick). But what else is there? Out of 230 pages, there must be a maximum of ten paragraphs where we actually get something written by Carpenter. Everything is a quote. And I get the cheeky "nothing is original" claim, but.
But I've done this for an assignment in my first year MDes and I got burnt by a "cool. Self-indulgent but cool."
So, Tim: cool. Self-indulgent but cool.
February 11, 2024
I don't usually annotate books, but this one had so many sections I wanted to remember, that I just had to put sticky notes all over it. I recommend this for writers as well as visual artists.
Read
March 30, 2024If I end up writing a review of this, which was worth reading but seriously flawed, it won't be short.
January 10, 2024
tim ur a genius
December 10, 2023
I gifted it to my photographer partner and he didn't like it or understand it, so I get why people would be fooled by the premise. I got lucky with it because I fell in love with the title, it spoke to me and I could identify it with my poetry style. Without any idea of what I was going to find inside, I got a brilliant essay who defines and speaks about the core of how I personally feel as an artist and how I look at art. It is a forever read. On top of that, I found fascinating the way it is structure with digressions and I found quotes of some of my favorite authors.
June 28, 2023
I'm going to have to return to this one, maybe yearly.
November 27, 2024
Short book that I breezed through pretty quickly, but it was quite philosophically complex. I think the author expected me to know more about philosophical concepts than I did, so I will probably read it again at some point.
It had an interesting structure that kind of fucked with my ability to follow the arguments coherently. Where there were 3 separate trains of thought on each page. The core writing in black, anecdotal questions in red, and digressions in blue. Never seen that before. Kind of interesting. Kind of made it hard to follow. Kind of feel like it was lazy writing. Why not just work to make your core train of thought more coherent & robust as opposed to throwing in these 2 other threads to manage.
But alas. What’s the core message of the book? Here’s my shortened understanding.
The book is based on the absurdist premise that you (a human) have a fundamental desire for meaning. But. Unfortunately. You live in a world that is inherently chaotic & meaningless. And you’re constantly confronting the tension of that experience.
Now. As a photographer. You see something. It makes you feel a certain way or think a certain thought. So you try to capture it. But. Unfortunately you never fully capture the energy you’re trying to express.
Therefore, to practise photography you must do 2 things.
1. Constantly confront your lived experience to try and understand & express it.
2. Constantly deal with the discomfort that arises from never being able to perfectly do that.
So this experience kind of parallels the existential fears that arise from a secular life. (The absurdist premise)
Death is scary when you feel this separation between yourself and the world. This feeling that arises when you want meaning & purpose, and realize that the world won’t give it to you.
And to photograph is to constantly feel this separation between yourself & the thing you’re trying to capture. To try & fail at mining it for lasting sense of beauty or wisdom. But to find the beauty in that process itself.
And therefore the practice of photography is a preparation for death.
I think. I dunno if that’s at all what the author meant but that’s my thrown together interpretation.
It had an interesting structure that kind of fucked with my ability to follow the arguments coherently. Where there were 3 separate trains of thought on each page. The core writing in black, anecdotal questions in red, and digressions in blue. Never seen that before. Kind of interesting. Kind of made it hard to follow. Kind of feel like it was lazy writing. Why not just work to make your core train of thought more coherent & robust as opposed to throwing in these 2 other threads to manage.
But alas. What’s the core message of the book? Here’s my shortened understanding.
The book is based on the absurdist premise that you (a human) have a fundamental desire for meaning. But. Unfortunately. You live in a world that is inherently chaotic & meaningless. And you’re constantly confronting the tension of that experience.
Now. As a photographer. You see something. It makes you feel a certain way or think a certain thought. So you try to capture it. But. Unfortunately you never fully capture the energy you’re trying to express.
Therefore, to practise photography you must do 2 things.
1. Constantly confront your lived experience to try and understand & express it.
2. Constantly deal with the discomfort that arises from never being able to perfectly do that.
So this experience kind of parallels the existential fears that arise from a secular life. (The absurdist premise)
Death is scary when you feel this separation between yourself and the world. This feeling that arises when you want meaning & purpose, and realize that the world won’t give it to you.
And to photograph is to constantly feel this separation between yourself & the thing you’re trying to capture. To try & fail at mining it for lasting sense of beauty or wisdom. But to find the beauty in that process itself.
And therefore the practice of photography is a preparation for death.
I think. I dunno if that’s at all what the author meant but that’s my thrown together interpretation.
February 7, 2025
3.0 ☆☆� I liked it but...
When I finished this book I felt lost and annoyed. It took me two months to read which is a long time for me for something of this length. I felt I hadn't understood the author's point (written in black) and that I hadn't been able to enjoy or simply digest the many MANY tangents (printed in blue~green) and quotes (printed in red) that take up more than half of the text and kind of bury the argument. Still, I felt there was something in there so I went back and reread only the main essay and I finally got what he wanted to say which is basically:
Of course there's more to it, but it's all there in the title. And it's an intriguing idea, but the book's structure makes it very difficult to grasp the arguments for it. The author digresses so much that he ends up diluting his argument. Read in isolation, each fragment can be inspiring. Read as a whole, like he suggests, is just frustrating.
The book oscillates between an intense love letter to the author's main medium of expression (photography) and an attempt at exploring (defining?) its ontology which others have already done quite well (off the top of my head just think of André Bazin or fucking Susan Sontag whom Carpenter strangely never mentions). As the former, and as a collection of reflections on the act of making art, I can say this book has value. As a contribution to the literature on photography, it doesn’t add much.
When I finished this book I felt lost and annoyed. It took me two months to read which is a long time for me for something of this length. I felt I hadn't understood the author's point (written in black) and that I hadn't been able to enjoy or simply digest the many MANY tangents (printed in blue~green) and quotes (printed in red) that take up more than half of the text and kind of bury the argument. Still, I felt there was something in there so I went back and reread only the main essay and I finally got what he wanted to say which is basically:
"...our sense of death is constructed of the things we make from life. [...] we manifest our epiphanies (those momentary accords between the internal and the external, and time) in aesthetic objects, which are created sets of relationships between entirely external things. Here is the ultimate argument for the usefulness to humans (the ethics) of the aesthetic object: that significant form (as beauty) can help to prepare its audience (and its maker) for non-being."
Of course there's more to it, but it's all there in the title. And it's an intriguing idea, but the book's structure makes it very difficult to grasp the arguments for it. The author digresses so much that he ends up diluting his argument. Read in isolation, each fragment can be inspiring. Read as a whole, like he suggests, is just frustrating.
The book oscillates between an intense love letter to the author's main medium of expression (photography) and an attempt at exploring (defining?) its ontology which others have already done quite well (off the top of my head just think of André Bazin or fucking Susan Sontag whom Carpenter strangely never mentions). As the former, and as a collection of reflections on the act of making art, I can say this book has value. As a contribution to the literature on photography, it doesn’t add much.
March 9, 2023
"What function has the shutter other than to pause Being long enough for us to contemplate it?"
Pulling voluminous snapshot-like quotes from the worlds of photography, poetry, and philosophy, Tim Carpenter makes a compelling case that the camera—by the very nature of its limitations—is a device uniquely suited for engaging with the poetic friction on the fuzzy border between Self and World. Freed from the syntactical constraints of language, comprising an unmediated yet inherently subjective relationship with The Real, the medium of photography finds its highest fulfillment as lyric poetry.
This aesthetic fulfillment also comprises an ethics. The photographer grapples ceaselessly with the givenness of scenarios and the limitations of his or her tools; every moment is full of complex calculations, myriad tiny decisions, intricate negotiations between mind, machine, and world. This singular attitude of intentionality and openness—of radical respect for actuality—molds the photographer both for the task of living and for the acceptance of death.
"'Who we are is defined more by our way of interacting with the world than by our beliefs.' What is the camera other than an utterly singular way of interacting with the world? One that can help to clarify the selves of those who use it attentively."
Pulling voluminous snapshot-like quotes from the worlds of photography, poetry, and philosophy, Tim Carpenter makes a compelling case that the camera—by the very nature of its limitations—is a device uniquely suited for engaging with the poetic friction on the fuzzy border between Self and World. Freed from the syntactical constraints of language, comprising an unmediated yet inherently subjective relationship with The Real, the medium of photography finds its highest fulfillment as lyric poetry.
This aesthetic fulfillment also comprises an ethics. The photographer grapples ceaselessly with the givenness of scenarios and the limitations of his or her tools; every moment is full of complex calculations, myriad tiny decisions, intricate negotiations between mind, machine, and world. This singular attitude of intentionality and openness—of radical respect for actuality—molds the photographer both for the task of living and for the acceptance of death.
"'Who we are is defined more by our way of interacting with the world than by our beliefs.' What is the camera other than an utterly singular way of interacting with the world? One that can help to clarify the selves of those who use it attentively."
June 10, 2024
Algumas coisas me incomodaram muito nessa leitura:
1. A escrita é prolixa sem necessidade nenhuma. Não precisa ser prolixo para montar um bom argumento.
2. As interrupções na leitura quebrando completamente o raciocÃnio de quem lê para colocar citações e notas que muitas vezes parecem fora de contexto. O autor quis montar um livro acadêmico quebra-cabeça leia na ordem que quiser que só torna a escrita mais confusa.
3. Muitas vezes parece que esses artifÃcios são utilizados para deixar mais complexo e longo e um argumento relativamente simples: a câmera fotográfica e as escolhas que fazemos para fazer uma fotografia não são apenas escolhas estéticas feitas para registrar uma imagem, mas dizem respeito ao modo como a gente se coloca diante do mundo e o pensa visualmente. É importante montar o argumento para isso, mas não precisa usar a prolixidade como autoridade acadêmica.
Acho que tem leituras sobre fotografia mais interessantes e reveladoras, pelo menos para mim.
1. A escrita é prolixa sem necessidade nenhuma. Não precisa ser prolixo para montar um bom argumento.
2. As interrupções na leitura quebrando completamente o raciocÃnio de quem lê para colocar citações e notas que muitas vezes parecem fora de contexto. O autor quis montar um livro acadêmico quebra-cabeça leia na ordem que quiser que só torna a escrita mais confusa.
3. Muitas vezes parece que esses artifÃcios são utilizados para deixar mais complexo e longo e um argumento relativamente simples: a câmera fotográfica e as escolhas que fazemos para fazer uma fotografia não são apenas escolhas estéticas feitas para registrar uma imagem, mas dizem respeito ao modo como a gente se coloca diante do mundo e o pensa visualmente. É importante montar o argumento para isso, mas não precisa usar a prolixidade como autoridade acadêmica.
Acho que tem leituras sobre fotografia mais interessantes e reveladoras, pelo menos para mim.
July 10, 2024
while not necessarily the most revelatory piece of photo writing in the sense that this is like well trod territory, i found this still very much worth the read. i think its important to be grappling with these ideas in a contemporary context, and i’m excited to see carpenter doing this. this feels very much conversational, he is thinking on the page, and i appreciate this honest approach. it can be a little hard to follow at times, there are some faults and I don’t buy every argument, but overall i think this is great. i’m excited for his next book. this is going to be a resource i’ll refer back to for years to come i’m sure, i mean all those citations, this is such a rich little library to have as a photographer. definitely recommend
October 3, 2024
This book got me at its title, before reading it I was already intrigued about the concept and what it had to say. As someone that enjoys herself philosophizing about things and life itself I found this book to be the holy grail for it. I enjoyed how the author revisited quotes from different creative genres such as poetry, and his use of philosophy it self to try give a very much descriptive and particular meaning of photography. As a non native English speaker it was a bit of a thought read, but I enjoy every single moment of it. I wish I’d taken notes and highlighted some thoughts that I found particularly interesting, but again that’s the beauty of it, I’ll always be on my nightstand, to re-read it with another perspective another different time.
March 31, 2025
Found this on the side of the street in Williamsburg. It is definitely an essay with digressions lol.
The beginning of the book was super philosophical and honestly hard to follow at times. The concept is essentially there are 2 things in this world: the inner self (spirit, consciousness, etc.) and everything else
Art and music is essentially a bridge between these 2 things in life. But with art, poetry and music, it is open to different perspectives and opinions. But the argument is basically that photography is a moment in time which captures the outside world. But the photographers inner self can control how it’s portrayed? Honestly I think I’m too stupid to understand what he was getting at with the “learn how to die� part of the title lol
The beginning of the book was super philosophical and honestly hard to follow at times. The concept is essentially there are 2 things in this world: the inner self (spirit, consciousness, etc.) and everything else
Art and music is essentially a bridge between these 2 things in life. But with art, poetry and music, it is open to different perspectives and opinions. But the argument is basically that photography is a moment in time which captures the outside world. But the photographers inner self can control how it’s portrayed? Honestly I think I’m too stupid to understand what he was getting at with the “learn how to die� part of the title lol
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 30, 2024
Saggio che eccede nelle pretese di contenuto e di forma/libro: navigando fra poesia e filosofia Carpenter costruisce una riflessione sull'atto del fotografare che a poco a poco si accartoccia su se stessa per via dell'oscurità e della ridondanza delle riflessioni, rese confuse dai vezzi di impaginazione e costruzione di discorsi paralleli che rendono il libro esteticamente più bello ma funzionalmente poco riuscito.
March 26, 2024
great considerations for photographers grappling with hard questions of self/death/identity/meaning, overlapped with many historical references. Great for a writer interested in visual language and photo, or a career photographer/academic asking questions, maybe not the hobbyist. The Wilco references were giving white dude who loves punk tho
December 9, 2024
Admittedly, this book went over my head. I'm not quite sure who the demographic for this book is, but the abstract concepts failed to hit home and I couldn't find myself to care about the tangents and digressions. Perhaps I will enjoy this book and its lesson with time, as I grow older.
"Your life's continual task is to build your death"
"Your life's continual task is to build your death"
April 28, 2025
I wanted to love this book.
I really did.
The formatting.
The lyrical essay format (genre).
The design.
Ultimately the problem I have is the logic, and essays, which are incredibly dissatisfying and left moving across a pool of arguments that leads to a flat murk.
On the surface the book feels massive. In the details it aches.
At least it looked pretty while reading.
I really did.
The formatting.
The lyrical essay format (genre).
The design.
Ultimately the problem I have is the logic, and essays, which are incredibly dissatisfying and left moving across a pool of arguments that leads to a flat murk.
On the surface the book feels massive. In the details it aches.
At least it looked pretty while reading.
May 13, 2024
I convinced a colleague to read this book and he finished much quicker than I. But he never rushed me, instead he'd say "Enjoy it! It ends too quickly!" and he was right. I'd live (and love) in this book a moment more if possible.
But I guess we must eventually go out and make our own art.
But I guess we must eventually go out and make our own art.
August 26, 2024
The most useful and most pleasurable art theory book I've read. Beautifully laid out. Occasionally winding but never painful or obtuse. A penetrating and idiosyncratic read that rewards all the attention you give it.
April 12, 2024
almost DNF, got nothing from it
May 27, 2024
the fiction i’m choosing to believe in is that this book helped me tremendously at this moment in my life and for that reason i love it
March 11, 2025
This is a confounding book that praises clarity.
March 21, 2025
(3.5 probably) I enjoyed this (...in parts) - despite some of the interjections (or digressions as put by the author being disruptive from time to time, I believe on the whole they added content to what would definitely have been an essay instead of a book) - the philosophy covers much interesting ground with ideas about the self and the not self and the parallels and differences between photography and life - what we choose and how we manicure things, how we see things, how people are artificial in photographs and in some ways what they choose to project is not their self on a regular basis but is perhaps closer to their true self, about the fictions that we choose to tell ourselves and how we can explore that through photographs, that the medium because of it's existence on the interface of life has the ability to convey one's truth as objective in a way that other mediums cannot (this authority then lends photography credence in the perpetuation of a narrative or even mistruths while removing it's credibility as an art form) - either ways, will be one with snippets of thought that will undoubtedly be thought-provoking even on revisiting
September 24, 2024
More accurately, How to Live
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