Good Pictures

Kim Beil teaches art history at Stanford University and writes about modern and contemporary art for publications including Artforum, Art in America, and Photograph. She thinks of Instagram as research and can be found @kim.beil.

"This is a terrific book-once I'd picked it up, I couldn't put it down again. In a series of punchy and perfectly judged miniatures, Kim Beil introduces us to the forgotten influencers of photographic style, placing these voices front and center in all their stridency, certainty, and eloquence. In a great service to photographic history she retrieves from neglected how-to guides a treasure trove that has long been awaiting this sort of treatment. Good Pictures brings an elegant coherence to the great heterogeneity of photographic practice, but without ever losing sight of that heterogeneity."-Peter Buse, author of The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changed Photography "It wasn't until I read Kim Beil's Good Pictures that I understood my own small collection of instructional photobooks could be read not just for practical purposes or ironically, to scoff at their dated naivete, but in a third way. Beil's essays opened my eyes to the enormous value these books hold for our critical understanding of the medium."-Alec Soth, Magnum photographer "Exploring the deceptively simple question of what makes a good picture, Kim Beil's fascinating and informative book delves into the chemistries, cameras, visual techniques, and subjects that have inspired photographers since the invention of the medium. In the process, she takes vernacular photography and photographers seriously and offers a fresh and essential new perspective on photo history."-Catherine Zuromskis, author of Snapshot Photography: The Lives of Images "In a lush and lavishly researched new book, Stanford art history professor Kim Beil breaks down 50 trends that informed what society has deemed a 'good picture'....As Beil notes, the rules are always changing-and tracing their evolution is a brilliant way to research and reflect upon broader changes in our society and ourselves."-Shana Nys Dambrot, LA Weekly "By studying the predilections and prejudices of photography manuals over time, Beil reveals a fresh and fascinating history of the medium that bridges high and low art, professional and amateur practitioners."-George Philip LeBourdais, Los Angeles Review of Books "This is an essential taxonomy of methods, eloquently described, that will be insightful for amateur and professional photographers, graphic designers and anyone interested in the impact of the reflected and exposed image on the history of vision and the vision of history."-Steven Heller, Print "[Biel]'s writing style is inviting and easy to follow... Good Pictures is an appropriate book for those wanting to learn more about the history of aesthetic trends in American photography." -Eboni Jones, ARLIS/NA Reviews "The book is informed and intelligent, and Beil's focus, along with the approximately 200 photographs, makes this work an interesting and valuable addition to the literature. Highly recommended."-W. S. Johnson, CHOICE