Why read Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia?

Book cover of Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia

Book description

The advertising campaigns launched by Kodak in the early years of snapshot photography stand at the centre of a shift in American domestic life that goes deeper than technological innovations in cameras and film. Before the advent of Kodak advertising in 1888, writes Nancy Martha West, Americans were much more…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Kodak and the Lens of Nostalgia as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Peter Buse

Author

This has been an incredibly important book for my thinking about photography. I always knew how instrumental Kodak advertising had been to popular ideas about amateur photography, but I learnt from this book how Kodak’s advertising changed over time.

In its early years, it emphasised the sheer pleasure of taking pictures, while only later did it start to promote photography as a tool of memory. It was those early years that interested me most because they pointed to another history of photography as playful and fun.

From Peter's list on The best books on the history of popular photography.