Photography In/Between Media Formats: The Work of Format from Magazines to Books, from Horst. P. Horst to Henri Cartier-Bresson

Abstract

This paper deals with photography in illustrated magazines and photobooks, and with what unfolds when photographs migrate from one media to the other. In such instances, we argue, reformatting is performed in distinctive affordances; yet such transfers also make visible the format conditions that underlie both the magazine and book media. By conducting an in-depth analysis of two exemplary photographs, by Horst P. Horst and Henri Cartier-Bresson, circulating between magazines and books, we aim to show how format markedly shapes photography in print and thus to demonstrate the work of format. In the process, matters of authoring and re-appropriating, as well as mechanisms of canonization and/or memorialization are brought to light. All contribute to structure and solidify the photographic field, as well as periodicals and books as media, in relationship to one another (and to their mediatic content). The established hierarchy of formats, in which photographs move up from magazines to books, in fact proved beneficial to both, bolstering the distinction – and thus the identity – of the media book and periodical.

Keywords

• illustrated magazines
• monographic photobooks
• photography in print
• media formats
• Horst P. Horst
• Cartier-Bresson (Henri)