Reading ["The Eye of Conscience: Photographers and Social Change" by Milton Meltzer and Bernard Cole] is a little like those times in school when you went in for a session with the guidance counselor: the man meant well, but the points he made, even about important things, were so predictable, and the terms he used were so solemn, and he repeated himself so much, that you were never sure, by the end, whether you were more bored or more annoyed with him. Like the guidance counselor's, the language in "The Eye of Conscience" isn't the kind that's geared for having fresh perceptions, or even for presenting old perceptions in a lively way. It's a shame everything is so smothered, because the book presents good subjects for its audience: how photography helps affect social change, or mirrors social problems, and how the camera, when used daily and continually, is...