The Missing Photograph

The Missing Photograph is a collection of stories and essays, each one matched to a particular photograph that is displayed opposite the text. The pieces touch on the relations between photography and story telling. Whether it is a story about a family outing, the planet Saturn or even a self-portrait, the images and words show they can refract off one another.

An image can re-frame and re-purpose a story while words can elucidate and draw out the more abstruse aspects of an image.

Some essays are forensic in their examination of the image and other stories use the image to launch into trajectories of their own. Then again some of these images remain virtually untouched by the story seemingly assigned to describe them. Yet others can only be made sensible by the accompanying text.

A theme of these pieces is the nature of photography, how it works and how it manages its limitations. Early photography is touched on, as are the ideas of photography theorists.

The range of images encompasses animals, people, places, still life and, of course, the photograph that is missing. We explore images of family and friends, stories of fate and personal identity.

This is a book about what photographs can show and words can explore.