Living with His Camera

This book will surprise anyone who has followed the various intellectual threads in photography starting with Susan Sontag to the present. Not only does Gallop put Susan Sontag's work in it's place, she liberates the idea and practice of photography from many of the simple formulations and replaced it with a deep and resonate literary analysis that will make free thinkers and artists very happy. Dick Blau's photographs are perfectly sited in this work. I can't think of another picture-text book that so perspiciously intergrates the two languages into a such a confounding whole. But that's life, at least the way we are forced to live it. The combination of Gallop and Blau's life and work sets a new standard for understanding the grammar of each of their mediums. They suggest how language and images, taken together, can enrich an intelligent and courageous family. Their willingness to believe that their minds, hearts, and art matter, should be an inspiration to any one who might believe that an unexamined family life is not worth living.