"The Thing Itself"

Photography has been holding a mirror up to itself almost since the camera was invented, but the idea of contemporary photographers using the medium as a subject has gained considerable currency in recent years—as this roundup of 16 artists attests. While their approaches vary—ranging from Christopher Williams's cutaway view of a lens to Vik Muniz recreating a Garry Winogrand image using cut paper before photographing it—their results share the same sense of the uncanny.