From the post by L’Oeil de la Photographie:
Chuck Samuels: Becoming Photography follows an aspect of the artist’s practice in which he performs before the camera in order to examine how photography (and, to a lesser extent, cinema) works and doesn’t work. In each of the six projects he selected for the publication, the artist uses himself as a surrogate for photography and, by focusing the camera on himself, he is actually turning the spectator’s gaze upon the very nature of photography. In an absurd but rigorous manner, he is attempting to become photography. The book addresses the following six projects: Before the Camera (1991), Before Photography (2010), The Photographer (2015), After (2020), On Photography (2020), and The Complete Photographer (2020).