Book Reviews
FRAMES
A Necessary Book for Those Who Remember and Those Who Do Not—Review of “Light in Dark Places.”
Let me say, here at the beginning, that Matthew Naythons’ book, Light in Dark Places, is a necessary book. It is profound, provoking, a touchstone to history that all of us need.
I could argue that every photographer, certainly every photojournalist, should have a copy of this on their desk. But, frankly, its relevance and importance go well beyond photojournalism, well beyond what we would now call conflict photography. —W. Scott Olsen
The Eye of Photography (L’Oeil de la Photographie)
Light in Dark Places, a new book by photojournalist and physician Matthew Naythons, brings together more than four decades of photography, reportage, and personal reflection on some of the most pivotal global and American events of the late twentieth century.
Published by the Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin and distributed by the University of Texas Press, the book features opening essays by New Yorker writers Judith Thurman and Jon Lee Anderson, followed by an afterword by noted historian Dr. Don Carleton, which together provide critical and historical context for Naythons’ life and work.
Musée - Vanguard of Photography Culture
In Light in Dark Places, Matthew Naythons offers a rare and deeply moving photographic memoir - one shaped not only by history, but by conscience. A physician turned self-taught photojournalist, Naythons spent decades on the front lines of war, revolution, and humanitarian crisis, bearing witness to moments that defined the late twentieth century. This book gathers nearly 200 photographs alongside an autobiographical narrative that is as reflective as it is unflinching.
What distinguishes Light in Dark Places from many retrospectives of conflict photography is its moral clarity. Naythons is not drawn to spectacle or heroics. Instead, his lens lingers on the human cost of power, ideology, and violence - on faces in crowds, gestures of grief, fleeting acts of dignity. The title signals his guiding impulse: to find light not by denying darkness, but by looking directly into it.
New!