Photography as Fiction

Photography is most commonly associated with fact, yet it has been a medium for fiction from the very beginning. From as early as 1839, artists began exploring photography's enormous potential for storytelling and often went to great lengths to create pictures for the camera. In this book, a short introductory essay summarizes the history of staged photography, highlighting key debates on the medium's blunt factuality and its capacity for deception, and goes on to showcase works by both widely known and less prominent artists, including Man Ray, Andy Warhol, Alfred Stieglitz, Lewis Carroll, Julia Margaret Cameron, Jo Ann Callis, and Paul Outerbridge.