http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bending-Frame-Photojournalism-Documentary-Citizen/dp/1597111201
Fred Ritchin is professor and associate chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and codirects the Photography and Human Rights Program at NYU with the Magnum Foundation. He also is director and cofounder of PixelPress, which works with humanitarian groups to develop visual projects dealing with social justice issues. Ritchin has written for Aperture, Le Monde, the New York Times, and the Village Voice, and authored several books, including the prescient In Our Own Image: The Coming Revolution in Photography (Aperture, 1990, 2000) and the more recent After Photography (2009).
Picking this up, being the first academic tone I have read for 25 years, was a little a daunting. But reading Ritchin’s book was not a painful process - it is accessible, filled with interesting asides and references and more worthy than wordy. As I read it over a number of sittings (what else does a man do when commuting other than Facebook) I dropped the thread a few times and am left not quite sure where the book started and ended. While the book is not propaganda - it has a viewpoint but its not didactic - I did find myself waiting for the point - and felt a little let down when it ended more open than closed.
