Failed Images: Photography and Its Counter-Practices (Vis-a-vis) by Ernst van Alphen

Failed Images: Photography and Its Counter-Practices (Vis-a-vis) Reviews

• 
  Alexander Debkaliuk

  Great read, full of insights and organically integrated references.
  
  It takes a look at complete photography history coming from most unusual perspectives. Not a history book per se.
  
  Provides deeper understanding of the medium, looks at various forms this art/craft comes in.
  
  Not only the content and thoughts, I like how the author delivers it. Looking forward to reading more from the Ernst Van Alphen.
• 
  Leyla Zebda

  Again, I'm dying for half reviews to be a thing, just because I am so hesitant to rate something 4 stars, but I think that actually this book merits it.
  
  I stole it from school but I never see anyone reading the books in class, nor do I ever see anyone reading in English, so I thought I might make use of it. I assumed this would be rather technical, but to my surprise it seemed relatively simple, and mostly focused on the philosophy of photography, something I have never really delved into enough. I spend so much time memorising and learning the technicalities of photography so it was nice for once just to be able to let loose a little.
  
  At times a little dense, but mostly quite approachable for anyone regardless their knowledge of photography, this book elegantly explores the supposed mishaps of photography and the ways in which artist have utilised these so called mistakes in the pursuit of creating and capturing something profound. Something that was incredibly intriguing was the detachment between photography and capturing an instant. I suppose we are all used to thinking of photography this way, in freezing the ephemeral, but really I think there is so much to be said of utilisation of photography in seemingly nonsensical ways. There was a passage near the beginning also that I found very touching, describing someone who had had many self portraits taken over the course of his life. I suppose I have always feared the interpretation of my own self portraits, knowing that on surface level they motioned an inherent narcissistic or egotistical desire, or even perhaps just the human longing to see oneself represented visually, something that most animals don't have the pleasure of experiencing, but I always felt like there was something more that I couldn't quite place my finger on. The author mentions that, having these portraits taken of him, Douglass, a black man who had been a slave for years, had found a process of 'soul awakening revelation' and that he 'needed this self-conformation through portraiture (repeatedly)'. This started to make sense to me, and I could see that I had been using self portraits in a similar way. As a recurring justification of the fact that I am. Simple as that.