"Singular Images, Essays on Remarkable Photographs" edited by Sophie Howarth, a curator at the Tate Modern, is a series of eleven essays, each on a single photograph.  The essayists are all from the academic side of art photography and are all well versed in photography and art history.  Essays all go into detail on the photographer, his times, the image and its meanings.

While this is an excellent book to read to understand photography, its impact and maybe meaning, what stands out for me is the reading in to a photograph, things that the photographer could not have intended.  And example is The Hug by Nan Goldin.  That is a colour photograph of a couple hugging.  It's lit by flash from the right side of the camera.  Shadows are black and empty.  The essayist remarks that the shadow the couple casts is a dark face profile with a heavy forehead. 

And that's true.  But that cannot be what Goldin saw, because until the flash occured, there was no shadow.  She may have selected the photo to use because of the shadow however.

The book is full of such assumptions by the essayists.  The book is also full of history of the life and times of the photographers.  And how they dealt with those times makes this short book an excellent background read for any photographer.

-Don