Reading Frames

Explorations in What Makes a Photograph Work

W Scott Olsen

• Publisher: University of Utah Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781647692810
• eBook ISBN:
  9781647692827
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art Theory & Criticism

A powerful meditation on the art of seeing
 
A collaboration between English professor and photographer W. Scott Olsen and Tomasz Trzebiatowski, founder of Frames magazine, Reading Frames gathers sixty-nine photographs first featured in Frames' digital companion. Olsen's essays interrogate the compositional and aesthetic elements of the photographs, but rather than offering technical instruction, Olsen writes with a literary sensibility, tracing how light, tone, color, and line evoke mood, meaning, and story. The essays ask us to linger with each photograph, guiding readers toward attentiveness, presence, and conversation with the image itself. Suited both to introductory photography classes and to general readers, this book is an example of how truly seeing an image is not the same as looking at it.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Still Life with One Light #2: Photograph by Patrick Arnold
• Eat Yourself Happy: Photograph by Sam Benari
• Fourth Moment: Photograph by Charles Blackhall
• Lunar Eclipse from Svalbard: Photograph by Elizabeth Bourne
• Photo Exhibition at La Gacilly: Photograph by James William Burke
• Cuban Ballerina: Photograph by Cathy Swain Cakebread
• Aonach Eagach: Photograph by Jenny Cameron
• Triptych: Photograph by Brian Cann
• Frozen Migration: Photograph by Nicolas Castermans
• Quickly Falls the Night: Photograph by Simon Ciappara
• The Observer: Photograph by Robert Clark
• The Rowers: Photograph by Robert Colameco
• Untitled: Photograph by Catherine Craig
• Untitled: Photograph by Partha Das
• The Biker: Photograph by Marnix Detollenaere
• View from a Hotel Window: Photograph by Ross Duncan
• Outsider: Photograph by Jerzy Durczak
• Aging Gracefully: Photograph by Richard Duret
• Abstract Architecture—van Abbe 1: Photograph by Peter van Eekelen
• Little Moments of Joy: Photograph by Bruno Flour
• Swirling Waters: Photograph by Roy Fraser
• The Contemporary Lifestyle: Photograph by Lyndall Gerlach
• Red Flag: Photograph by Cynthia Gladis
• Italian Renaissance: Photograph by Giuseppe Gradella
• Royal: Photograph by Lazlo Gyorsok
• Dancing in the Rain: Photograph by David Hein
• Bones of the Earth: Photograph by Robin Hudson
• The Affair: Photograph by Michael Hutchinson
• Santorini: Photograph by Mark Indig
• Oil Tank: Photograph by Marc Jaffe
• Iowa Sunset Reimagined: Photograph by Stephanie Johnson
• Miechów, Poland: Photograph by Wojciech Karliński
• Candlelight: Photograph by Kevin Karzin
• Tuscan Trees: Photograph by Brian Kosoff
• Summer II: Photograph by Fredrik Lithner
• Winter City Ghosts: Photograph by Alex Lo
• Sun 2: Photograph by Dieter Mach
• Dom Luís Bridge, Porto, Portugal: Photograph by Birgit Maddox
• Playing in the Sea: Photograph by Jim McKinniss
• Run: Photograph by Stuart McNeil
• Amour: Photograph by Thom Middlebrook
• Morning Light: Photograph by Guy Morin
• Schoolhouse Ridge South: Photograph by Mark Muse
• Performance on the Street Corner of Saint-Germain, Paris: Photograph by Yoshiaki Nagashima
• Disconnected: Photograph by Allan Noyes
• New York, 1981: Photograph by Jim Olvera
• Triptych: Photograph by Szűts Pál
• Leaves of Ice: Photograph by Robert Petersen
• Drongo: Photograph by Kiran Rawal
• The Old Boathouse on the Isle of Shona, Loch Moidart: Photograph by Tom Richardson
• From Tales of Liquerique: Photograph by Monica Riveiro
• A Closer Look at Thee: Photograph by Alissa Beth Rosenberg
• The Cellist: Photograph by Steve Runer
• Scalene: Photograph by Elizabeth Sanjuan
• Seven Glasses: Photograph by Paul Saunders
• Dwayne Dopsie: Photograph by Steve Sickels
• Winter Solitude: Photograph by Steve Silverman
• Atmospheric Traffic Lights: Photograph by Richard Simmons
• La Villaggio: Photograph by Stoney Stone
• Asakusa Nights: Photograph by Toby Studer
• Observations: Photograph by Tomasz Trzebiatowski
• Sunrise Santorini: Photograph by Chris Upton
• Pandemic Street Fair, Montreal: Photograph by Louise Verdone
• Nico & Dahlia: Photograph by Del LaGrace Volcano
• Fences: Photograph by Robert Walpole
• Broken #2: The Human Condition: Photograph by Tom Wilson
• Untitled: Photograph by Marc Zetterblom
• Kitchen: Photograph by Daniel Zrihen
• Epilogue
• Further Readings
• Photographers