How photographs work is the challenging subject of Jerry Thompson's radiant new book. Once considered revolutionary in their illumination of the world, photographs have long since been reconceived as prestigious aesthetic objects. Against this turn Thompson argues reflectively and philosophically for a restored sense of need and purpose. The book offers a stunning recovery of the original raison d'etre of camera work as revelation and knowledge. -- Alan Trachtenberg, Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies, Yale University; and author of Reading American Photographs and other books It would be hard to imagine a more effective and refreshing demonstration of why photography matters than Jerry Thompson's book of that title. It is demonstrative as reasoning and also as a display of the way photographs can awaken and engage all the human powers of intellect and sensibility. To look along with the author is to embark on a dialectical path that describes a long arc through regions rarely embraced in one view. -- Joe Sachs, translator of Plato's Republic and Aristotle's Physics In photography, content is often confused with aesthetics. In his concise and focused study, Jerry L. Thompson, gifted with an artist's eye and a philosophical mind, requires but a few examples -- from Atget to Evans -- to illustrate what remains when all narrative has been exhausted: the true essence that turns a photographic image into a work of art. -- Heinz Liesbrock, Director of the Josef Albers Museum, Bottrop

Jerry L. Thompson is a working photographer who also writes about photography. He worked as Walker Evans's principal assistant from 1973 to Evans's death in 1975. He is the author of The Last Years of Walker Evans and Truth and Photography.