Berenice Abbott: Selected Writings

Berenice Abbott’s Selected Writings starts off Ivorypress Ars Litterae series, a collection of paperback books whose aim is to publish rare and out-of-print texts by lesser-known modern and contemporary artists in a format that is within the reach of a wider audience.

This publication comprises four of Abbott’s key writings on the medium: Photography and Science (1939), A Guide to Better Photography (1941), The View Camera Made Simple (1948), and The World of Atget (1964), functioning as a guide to immersing oneself in the world of photography. These texts, slightly edited to avoid potential overlaps and some highly technical chapters that may not be so interesting to contemporary readers, provide extraordinary theoretical content, precise instructions for taking a good picture and how to acquire the visual tools to do it, and invite reflection upon the difference and responsibility of owning a camera in those days versus today.