Quick-Eyed Love: Photography and Memory

In her memoir, Susan Garrett brings together scenes from her girlhood in Pennsylvania during World War II with the art and craft of photography. She describes living with her irascible, social-climbing grandmother while her mother pieced together a living taking pictures of the children of the wealthy inhabitants of the Main Line, an elite suburban enclave of Philadelphia. Her mother, Alice Benedict, was one of the few women photographers of her day - a student and protege of Alfred Steiglitz. Garrett sketches the science and history of photography, populating her narrative with legendary figures like Margaret Bourke-White, a bold contemporary of her mother and with whom Susan sensed her mother's veiled competitiveness; pioneers of photography like Daguerre, Fox Talbot, and Henri Cartier-Bresson; and writers like Susan Sontag, whose work ponders the ethical dimension of photographing tragic events.The volume features Alice Benedict's photographs as well as many by photographers such as Roger Fenton, W. Eugene Smith, and Ansel Adams.