Seizing the Light: A Social & Aesthetic History of Photography
By Robert Hirsch

Fourth Edition, Published February, 2024

Covering major events, practitioners, works, and social effects of photographic practice, author Robert Hirsch provides a concise and discerning chronological account of photography, drawing on influential examples. This fundamental starting place shows a multiplicity of makers, inventors, issues, and applications, exploring the artistic, critical, and social aspects of the creative thinking process.

New topics include the rise of AI, mobile and drone photography, surveillance camera, image manipulation, protest and social justice photography, and the role of social media in photography.

Light and Lens: Photography in the Digital Age
By Robert Hirsch

Light & Lens: Photography in the Digital Age is a groundbreaking introductory book that clearly and concisely provides the instruction and building blocks necessary to create thought-provoking digitally based photographs. It is an adventurous idea book that features numerous classroom-tested assignments and exercises from leading photographic educators to encourage you to critically explore and make images from the photographers’ eye, an aesthetic point of view.

Photographic Possibilities: The Expressive Use of Equipment, Ideas, Materials, and Processes
By Robert Hirsch

The long-awaited new edition of this seminal text features clear, reliable, step-by-step instructions on innovative alternative and traditional photographic processes. Over and above a full update and revision of the technical data, there are new sections on digital negative making, electrophotography, and self-publishing.

Exploring Color Photography, From Film to Pixels
By Robert Hirsch

Robert Hirsch’s Exploring Color Photography: From Film to Pixels is the thinking photographer’s guide to color imagemaking. Now in its sixth edition, this pioneering text clearly and concisely instructs students and intermediate photographers in the fundamental aesthetic and technical building blocks needed to create thought-provoking digital and analog color photographs. Taking both a conceptual and pragmatic approach, the book avoids getting bogged down in complex, ever-changing technological matters, allowing it to stay fresh and engaging.

Transformational Imagemaking
By Robert Hirsch

Transformational Imagemaking: Handmade Photography Since 1960 is a groundbreaking survey of significant work and ideas by imagemakers who have pushed beyond the boundaries of photography as a window on our material world. These artists represent a diverse group of curious experimentalists who have propelled the medium’s evolution by visualizing their subject matter as it originates from their mind’s eye. Many favor the historical techniques commonly known as alternative photographic processes, but all these makers demonstrate that the real alternative is found in their mental approach and not in their use of physical methods.