"Even if you read these essays when they first appeared . . . , it is very useful to have them here as a meta-review of an important transition period in the history of photography practice and criticism. . . . Coleman's writing -- open, rather folksy, but with a vocabulary that keeps the dictionary close, and full of references to other art forms -- [is] an antidote to the turgid critiques of his contemporaries . . . Another element of Coleman's criticism that I appreciate is his readiness to draw his examples from the works of obscure as well as famous photographers. . . . I was able to track down [Pierre] Molinier's work, which was new to me, and it has added insights to my long attempts to figure out Hans Bellmer's disturbing photographs of recombinant dolls. Coleman's inclusiveness, combined with his recent extensive explorations of both new and historical European photography . . . has the intended effect of breaking down the notion of an immutable canon of photo-based art. And this, in turn, helps Coleman's readers begin their escape -- it is a long way out -- from whatever corner of taste they may have been written into, Bernard Berensen-style, by Stieglitz, Newhall and Szarkowski. . . . His essays serve as a reality check, even a null set, for those of us in museums and universities."

-- Rod Slemmons, Blackflash (Canada)

-- Mettye Sandbye, Katalog (Denmark)

-- John Stathatos, European Photography (Germany)

"In this case you can judge a book by its cover. The intriguing shot of George Eastman in bowler hat, with gloves in hand, penciled annotation across his head, suggests the startling curiosities, breadth of information, and jewel-like insights in Tarnished Silver. . . . In a word, Coleman's knowledge of photography past and present -- theory, practice, meaning, politics, technology, and potential -- is vast. . . . These ideas and opinions culled from a whole range of publications are interesting and erudite, often provocative and prescient. Plus, he is eminently understandable."

-- Mike Johnston, Photo Techniques

"Well-known for his succinct essays and a knowledge of photography that spans nearly the whole history of it, Coleman writes in a casual, familiar style that engages the reader by informing yet never condescending. His essays are filled with facts, anecdotes and witticisms on Polaroid, Kodak, famous and long-dead artists, even a story on "chocolate photography." But, unlike intellectual diatribes that ramble on, seemingly in tongues, with recurrent lapses into other languages and esoteric terms, Coleman remains far from that style. . . . [T]he effect Coleman produces is like that of an old friendship. He is comfortable and honest with his audience, he shares reference points if not opinions with them. [H]is rapport with his audience is key to maintaining a warm, trusting correspondence. . . . Coleman's essays from a decade ago, like some Dickensian phantom, shake their head at our current state, showing us how little we have changed through the eighties, how much worse things have become. They seem to have known all along that things would deteriorate, and, glancing at their watch, know that time is running out."

-- Elva Ramirez, Photo Metro

. . . These definitions [of the term "pornography"] cover the spectrum of sources, from those who would suppress the material in question to those who advocate its free dissemination. What is fascinating is that, for all their diversity, the definitions are virtually useless. Save for the one proposed by Malamuth and Billings -- according to which a medical school's models of reproductive organs, Playboy's centerfold and Picasso's "Demoiselles d'Avignon" are all pornography -- these are value judgments masquerading as definitions. A general semanticist would have a field day unravelling the assumptions buried in each; the prospect of applying them to particular works is terrifying. Truly, as art critic Morse Peckham noted with chagrin, "It appears, then, that there is no available definition of pornography and no prospect of creating a neutral definition." That this lament was issued 17 years ago, yet still holds despite almost two decades of subsequent debate, says much about the quality and substance of that debate.

The absence of a neutral, commonly agreed-on working definition of a subject would normally be considered a fundamental roadblock to critical inquiry. Astonishingly, as Malamuth and Billings aver without (so far as I can tell) the slightest hint of sarcasm, "The lack of a precise definition has not impeded empirical work on the functions and effects of pornography, especially since the 1970 Presidential Commission on Pornography and Obscenity, and more vigorously, in the early 1980s."

-- from "'Porn,' Polls and Polemics: The State of Research on the Social Consequences of Sexually Explicit Material" (1986)

. . . [I]t is difficult today to find major contemporary artists in any medium whose work is not to a considerable extent photographically informed. The pervasive influence of photography has proved unavoidable. By changing the way in which we see the world, it has altered the ways which spaces, objects, surfaces, and the relationships between them are perceived. With a curious irony, we appear to be resolving finally the hoary debate over the status of photography as art. The resolution seems to be that the question is unimportant and wrong-headed. The crucial understanding may well be that all art is merely pre-photographic -- by which I mean that photography is the culmination of the ancient human drive to evolve a versatile, easily practiced visual communication process, and what we think of as the previous visual "art forms" are nothing more than earlier, clumsier, less adaptable means to that end.

-- from "Hybridization: A Photographic Tradition" (1981)

-- from "On the Dole: Revamping Public Funding for the Arts" (1985)