Looking Again is as much about photography, in a broader sense, as it is about the specific photographs reproduced within it. It is designed to provide the reader with a glimpse into both the collection at the New Orleans Museum of Art and into photography’s complexity. Through 132 objects and essays, Russell Lord explores the many histories of photography, addressing long-held beliefs and offering new ways of thinking about, and looking at, photographs. As the world moves increasingly toward an image-dependent style of communication, there has never been a better time to seriously examine our belief in or apprehension toward the photographic image. Standing on the threshold of what might be a turning point in humanity’s relationship to the photograph, this volume encourages the reader to dig deeply into photography: to look, and then look again.

The book is published on the centennial of the first photography exhibition presented at the New Orleans Museum of Art, in 1918.