A curious collection of short essays that, reveal their origins in the cursory style intrinsic to many magazines. As magazine articles, they would have acquitted themselves splendidly. However, this same brevity in a book of this nature becomes its Achilles heel. As a loose collection of essays skirting the subject of beauty it succeeds. However, as a cogent philosophy on beauty in photography it’s very brevity delivers a superficial gloss at best.
On reflection, I can’t help but wonder if the fault here lies not with the author but with it’s publisher whom, under commercial pressures to publish or perish thought that assembling a loose collection of fairly unconnected essays would somehow slip under the radar of the discerning reader? I say this for two reasons. Firstly, that the author has seen fit to include an apology with regard to his lack of writing rigour in the book’s foreword.
Secondly, I would argue that no person in their right mind could expect to deal with the gritty issues of aesthetic philosophy in as little as one hundred pages. Unfortunately, the cursory way these are assembled do neither the author or publishers any favours as the subject of beauty requires substantially more rigour, depth and analysis.
Perhaps this book would have been more accurately titled: A collection of short essays on photography by Robert Adams.
However, if you know little of aesthetic philosophy and wish to whet your appetite in broad terms on beauty and aesthetics delivered in Robert’s eloquent yet clear writing style, then this book will hold your attention for the two hours it takes to read it.
