Naturalistic Photography

P H Emerson's Naturalistic Photography is one of the classics of photographic literature. This newly-designed and typeset edition includes the complete text of the definitive 1899 third edition which includes additional essays by Emerson, among them the controversial Photography - Not Art. Compared at the time to "dropping a bombshell at a tea party", Naturalistic Photography marked the start of a crusade against the academism of artistic photography. Dubbed "the Martin Luther of photography" (John Szarkowski), and more recently the "one of the most virulent polemicists in the history of photography" (Thomas Galifot, Musée d'Orsay), Emerson's fierce and trenchant writing is in sharp contrast to the gentle, atmospheric images of his pioneering photobooks such as Life and Landscapes of the Norfolk Broads and Marsh Leaves. Emerson's texts are today recognised as ranking alongside those of John Berger, Roland Barthes and John Szarkowski, as the precursors to contemporary thinking on photography.