We live in an era of abundant photography. Is it then counterintuitive to study photographs that disappear or are difficult to discern? Kate Palmer Albers argues that it is precisely this current cultural moment that allows us to recognize what has always been a basic and foundational, yet unseen, condition of photography: its ephemerality.

Through a series of case studies spanning the history of photography, The Night Albums takes up the provocations of artists who collectively redefine how we experience visibility. From the protracted hesitancies of photography’s origins, to conceptual and performative art that has emerged since the 1960s, to the waves of technological experimentation flourishing today, Albers foregrounds artists who offer fleeting, hidden, conditional, and future modes of visibility. By unveiling how ephemerality shapes the photographic experience, she ultimately proposes an expanded framework for the medium.

"Albers brilliantly encourages us to revisit the ephemerality of recent photographic works before returning to ‘the foundation’ . . . Albers tells us to wait in the scene—be it the clinic or gallery—to find out what’s moving, what’s missing, what’s pulsing inside us.” 

* Cleveland Review of Books *

Kate Palmer Albers is the author of Uncertain Histories: Accumulation, Inaccessibility, and Doubt in Contemporary Photography and coeditor of Before-and-After Photography: Histories and Contexts. She teaches visual culture, contemporary art, media studies, and history and theory of photography at Whittier College in Los Angeles.