Wholesale Photography and Belief by David Levi Strauss

[David Zwirner Books] In this exploration of contemporary photography, David Levi Strauss questions the concept that “seeing is believing”. Identifying a recent shift in the dominance of photography, David Levi Strauss looks at the power of the medium in the age of Photoshop, smart phones, and the internet, asking important questions about how we look and what we trust. In the first ekphrasis title on photography, Strauss challenges the aura of believability and highlights the potential dangers around this status. He examines how images produced on cameras gradually gained an inordinate power to influence public opinion, prompt action, comfort and assuage, and direct or even create desire. How and why do we believe technical images the way we do? Offering a poignant argument in the era of “fake news,” Strauss draws attention to new changes in the technology of seeing. Some uses of "technical images" are causing the connection between images and belief (between seeing a