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In What Photography Is, James Elkins examines the strange and alluring power of photography in the same provocative and evocative manner that he explored oil painting in his best-selling What Painting Is. Elkins argues that photography is also about meaninglessness--its apparently endless capacity to show us things that we do not want or need to see--and pain--extremely powerful images that can sear into our consciousness permanently. Extensively illustrated with a surprising range of images, Elkins demonstrates that what makes photography uniquely powerful is its ability to express the difficulty--physically, psychologically, emotionally, and aethstically--of the act of seeing.