Touching Photographs

“This book is a series of memorably profound excursions into the defining techniques of modernity. Olin is a simultaneously sympathetic and sharp reader of images and contexts, giving Touching Photographs considerable literary merit. This is a wonderful book.”

“This is essential reading for anyone interested in the newest thinking about photography. Beautifully argued, it reconceives our understanding of the photograph as an index of presence, seeing it instead as an event and a social practice that provokes relationship and community. Looking is tactile, embodied, interested, and often mistaken, but in Olin’s engrossing close readings, mistakes become revealing symptoms of the enduring power of images.”

“By focusing our attention on the metaphor of touch, Olin reminds us of photography’s many layers of manifestation: as an indexical trace of the world it depicts, as a physical object that circulates in this world, and as a pictorial inducer of emotions and sentiments. Touched, touchable, and touching, the photograph is here submitted to Olin’s ‘tactile looking,’ allowing her to range widely, from her own personal snapshots to the work of masters, and even to encompass the searing experience of 9/11, in which photography played such a central role. Whether one chooses to ‘bask’ in her chosen photographs, as Olin suggests, or simply to learn from her erudition, this book will bring you in closer touch with what makes photography such a complex and fascinating cultural phenomenon.”