Things

Book excerpt: The medium of photography used the laws of chemistry and physics to create superbly detailed descriptions of the material world that surpassed all earlier graphic media. Objects were photography's earliest subject. This book draws from the photographs in the Victoria and Albert Museum's collection, which were made by artists, scientists, reporters, advertising and editorial photographers, from the pioneers to the postmoderns. Things includes the work of ninety photographers from Talbot and Julia Margaret Cameron to Edward Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn, Diane Arbus and that of a new generation on the cutting edge of recent technology. This book is a survey of how we view the physical world, and within the structure of the book is contained the history of photography itself.