Transformational Imagemaking: Handmade Photography Since 1960

Reviews / Votes

"[I]n a substantial preface, an introductory scholarly essay, and over fifty artists' interviews, this beautifully illustrated volume uncovers traditions of what are commonly called alternative photographic practices - the 'transformational imagemaking' of Hirsch's title - as having been central to photography from its very start. Above all else, this book presents a strand of photography-based art that has too often flown under the radar of scholars of photographic history, and it delivers an astonishing array of recent work that harnesses photography's perceived indexicality to play with received ideas about perception and reality. In so doing, the book allows for a reconsideration of all photographs as products of artistic imagination created by 'makers' rather than 'takers', in Hirsch's words." - Elizabeth Otto, History of Photography, 39:2, 204-206

"Preceding the visual collection of images are a thought-provoking preface and in-depth history on the artform of handmade photography, beginning with the first hand colored Daguerreotypes and bringing us all the way up to modern day haptics and realists. After reading this comprehensive history retold with such devotion to the subject, one cannot help but gain increased respect for the meeting of philosophy, creativity, and kinesthesia that underlies the handmade photography world." - One Twelve Publishing