I know, it's hard to pry your eyes away from the screen and do some offline reading every once in awhile, but do it, and your eyes and your head will thank you. If you're not sure where to begin (often a problem online too...) start here, on HHS panelist Darius Himes' blog (I know! I know! I just suggested going offline, but here first, then to your couch! And then, back to the interwebs for some follow-up reading.)
Among other things, Mr. Himes manages to squeeze in some time to teach at the College of Santa Fe and has been posting his class' reading assignments on his blog. So, if you'd like, follow along and brush up your knowledge. Unfortunately, we've missed the reading aloud of The Nature of Photographs by Stephen Shore (in entirety) but next on the list is Charlotte Cotton's The Photograph as Contemporary Art. Cotton's book concisely but not too cleanly, divides contemporary photography into seven categories, leaving room for the overlap and blurring of definitions that are bound to happen.
Also recommended: the latest publication of Aperture magazine. Highlights include Darius' review of Richard Benson's The Printed Picture which offers real inspiration for stepping away from the monitor and into the darkroom (as if my arm needed twisting) and Lyle Rexer's introduction of the work of Pertti Kekarainen. Pertti's abstract images are luscious but slightly disturbing examinations of vision, its significance and its delicacy. As Rexer explains:
Sight is fragile... We think of sight as a window, as if there were little people inside our heads looking out, as Stephen Shore once remarked. But that is wrong: sight confirms the world -- space, place, and even time. Deprived of it, we belong nowhere, confined to ourselves.
Um, all the more reason to relax your retinas. Anyone else have some paper and ink reading materials to share?