It is an original publication by Julian Stallabrass that collects and anthologizes a series of essays on photography, thus realizing the idea and initiative of Iraklis Papaioannou and University Studio Press for a special project. Through the essays in the publication, the author discusses photography as a medium and as an act, highlighting the active role of the artist. The first essay thoroughly exposes the work of Sebastiao Salgado and documentary photography; the second essay analyzes the evolution of street photography in Paris, its heyday and gradual decline in the second half of the 20th century.The author then analyses the entry of contemporary photography into the museum arena through the example of Jeff Wall and refutes the apparent neutrality of the popular “expressionless” portrait photography, using as a basis the work of Rineke Dijkstra and relating it to that of Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon. Lisa Barnard’s work serves as a sharp example of the role of drone imagery and new technologies in the contemporary warfare enterprise, while Oliver Chanarin and David Broomberg’s adaptation of Oliver Chanarin and David Broomberg’s Alphabet of War, Bertolt Brecht’s historical, anti-war book on National Socialism, becomes an occasion to comment on whether and when art deals with politics in a substantive or non-essential way. The final essay is an unpublished text and concerns Richard Mosse’s photographs of the war zones of the Congo civil war which provide the impetus for a discussion of how contemporary art can superficially stigmatize and substantially disarm, with a focus on spectacular aestheticization.