<DIV> <p>Still life is one of the great traditional art forms. The first still-life photograph was created around 1827, more than a decade before the news of photography&rsquo;s invention was announced in Paris and London in 1839. This volume surveys some of the innovative ways photographers have explored the traditional genre of still life from photography&rsquo;s earliest years to the present day.</p> <p>The introductory essay is followed by an illuminating sequence and juxtaposition of plates selected from the J. Paul Getty Museum&rsquo;s collection. Still life has served as both a conventional and an experimental form during periods of significant aesthetic and technological change. Illustrating that here are nineteenth-century masterpieces by practitioners such as Hippolyte Bayard and Roger Fenton, twentieth-century examples that include the diverse styles of Baron Adolph de Meyer, Irving Penn, and Edward Weston, and a sampling of contemporary artists, some recalling styles from the past. The current revival of interest in the genre comes as the digital age is transforming the medium.</p> </div>