Written by world-renowned photographer, writer, and broadcaster Tom Ang, Photography lavishly celebrates the most iconic photographs and photographers of the past 200 years.
Tracing the history of photography from its origins in the 1800s to the digital age, Photography: The Definitive Visual History is the only book of its kind to give a comprehensive account of the people, the photographs, and the technologies that have shaped the history of photography.
An entertaining and comprehensive compendium packed with fascinating trivia, delightful oddities, and compelling stories that will captivate photographers of all levels and interests!
Dive into photography's rich heritage with A Brief History of Photography, an engaging almanac-style book that offers far more than just the typical and dry historical accounts of the genre. With more than 400 fascinating trivia entries and delightfully odd anecdotes, this book breathes life into the background details, stories, and personalities behind the cameras and processes we know and love.
Meticulously researched and written over two decades, this thoroughly entertaining and highly readable book provides an understanding of photography's evolution, from its beginnings going as far back as the 16th century all the way up to the modern day. Whether you’re dipping into the book for just a few minutes or sitting down for an afternoon of reading, you’ll explore the seminal cameras, lenses, and chemical processes that paved the way, as well as the visionary inventors, influential magazines, and significant photographers who made photography what it is today.
Profusely illustrated with both photographs and line drawings, A Brief History of Photography is an essential addition to any photographer's library. Whether you're a seasoned professional, an avid enthusiast, or simply someone who appreciates the magic of capturing images with your smartphone, this book offers an entertaining and educational look into the genre's rich history. The perfect gift—for either yourself or the photographer on your list—A Brief History of Photography is a must-have for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding and appreciation of this extraordinary art form.
Walter Benjamin's A Little History of Photography offers a fascinating glimpse into the early development of photography and its broader implications, making it as relevant today as when it was first published in 1931. In this essay, Benjamin—a philosopher and cultural critic—demonstrates remarkable foresight about the transformative power of photography. His declaration that "the illiterate of the future ... will not be the man who cannot read the alphabet, but the one who cannot take a photograph" underscores his belief that the medium would become essential to modern communication and culture.
Beginning with the pioneering experiments of Louis Daguerre and Nicéphore Niépce, Benjamin traces photography's evolution through to the work of August Sander and Germaine Krull. But his essay goes beyond a simple history of the medium, exploring its artistic, societal, and political potential. In doing so, Benjamin anticipates his later and more famous work, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, where he would further explore the concept of “reproducibility” and its implications for art in the modern age.
A Little History of Photography remains a seminal text for understanding photography as more than just a technical innovation—it’s a tool for analyzing art, culture, and politics. Benjamin’s insights gave early credibility to the medium and its practitioners, shaping the critical frameworks that are still used today. This essay is a must-read for anyone interested in the philosophical and historical dimensions of photography.
From a delivery boy to one of the most important industrialists in American history, George Eastman's career developed in a particularly American way. The founder of Kodak died in 1932, and left his house to the University of Rochester. Since 1949 the site has operated as an international museum of photography and film, and today holds the largest collection of its kind in the world. The continually expanding photography collection contains over 400,000 images and negatives - among them the work of Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams and others - as well as 23,000 cinema films, five million film stills, one of the most important silent film collections, technical equipment and a library with 40,000 books on photography and film. The George Eastman House is a pilgrimage site and a place of worship for researchers, photographers and collectors from all over the world.
This volume shows in chronological order the most impressive images and the most important developments in the art of light that is photography. It provides in its huge collection and themes a unique survey of the medium from its origins until now.
Since its first publication in 1937, this lucid and scholarly chronicle of the history of photography has been hailed as the classic work on the subject. No other book and no other author have managed to relate the aesthetic evolution of the art of photography to its technical innovations with such an absorbing combination of clarity, scholarship and enthusiasm. Through more than 300 works by such master photographers as William Henry Fox Talbot, Timothy O'Sullivan, Julia Margaret Cameron, Eugene Atget, Peter Henry Emerson, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Man Ray, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Ansel Adams, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, Minor White, Robert Frank and Diane Arbus, author Beaumont Newhall presents a fascinating, comprehensive study of the significant trends and developments in the medium since the first photographs were made in 1839. New selections added to the fifth edition include photographs made in color, from hand-tinted daguerreotypes of 1850 to turn-of-the-century autochromes by Edward Steichen, to works by contemporary masters such as Eliot Porter, Ernst Haas, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Joel Meyerowitz.Beaumont Newhall (1908-1993) was an influential curator, art historian, writer and photographer. In 1935 he became the Librarian at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1940, he became the first Director of MoMA's Photography Department. He served as Curator of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House from 1948 to 1958, then as its Director from 1958 to 1971. While at the Eastman House, Newhall was responsible for amassing one of the greatest photographic collections in the world.
Without emptiness, matter does not exist. But what if the void itself contains all the meanings we seek? In her book Atlas of Void, German artist Kathleen Alisch offers us a tangible and hypnotic proof of how
space—interior, exterior, and other—is synonymous with infinite possibilities. The ninety-six page book, published by L’Artiere in 2022, collects images that seem to come from our everyday world and at the same time from places we swear we’ve seen in a dream, or perhaps in other dimensions. Black, silver, present, absent: each photograph draws us into the boundary between reality and perception, creating a silent rhythm that does not need words—and gives viewers the time to find their own. A map of the void was possible all along.
Bury Me in the Back Forty is the highly anticipated successor to the sold-out books "Out West" and "Crown Ditch" by Kyler Zeleny and the final chapter in his prairie trilogy. For a decade now, Kyler Zeleny has been documenting his hometown, a rural community on the Canadian Prairies with deep Ukrainian roots, consisting of 915 people.
Black Box, a memoir by award-winning American photographer Dona Ann McAdams, combines fifty years of black and white photography with the photographer’s own short lyric texts she calls “ditties.” The book brings together McAdams’ striking historical images with personal reflections that read like prose-poems. Her photographs, taken between 1974 and 2024, document astonishing moments and people across decades of American life.
Jeff Dworsky dropped out of school at 14, bought a Leica at 15, and moved to a small island in Maine at 16 to become a fisherman.
In his debut monograph, Sealskin, photographs of his life are paced to an old Celtic folktale about a fisherman who discovers a selkie—a mythical creature that can transform from a seal into a human—falls in love, has a family, but must let her go. This tale mirrors Dworsky’s own life, it is a story of desire, the erosion of time, and the inevitability of change. Using Kodachrome film, Dworsky documented his family, daily life, and the fishing community in a small Maine village during the 70-80s, capturing a world that no longer exists.
When artist Dimitri Staszewski found out that his close friend and artistic mentor, renowned contemporary jewelry artist Thomas Mann was diagnosed with cancer, Staszewski made the decision to support Mann through that process. During Mann’s three-month treatment, he continued making work at a frenetic pace while Staszewski started documenting the physical and emotional space they were sharing.
Don’t miss your chance to own The Sound of Waves, the latest photo book by acclaimed photographer Tatsuo Suzuki. This stunning new work captures the essence of life and movement with Suzuki's signature style. Be among the first to experience this visual masterpiece by pre-ordering your copy through his exclusive Kickstarter campaign. Support the project today and secure a piece of art that promises to inspire and captivate!
Photographs by Stefano De Luigi: Captures the transformation of Italian TV and its influence on society and had free access to all these programmes during the renowned Bunga Bunga era in Italy.
Curated by Laura Serani: Ensures a thoughtful and engaging presentation.
The portraits, life stories, and DNA of 100 Angelenos making positive social impact in the community will be showcased in an exhibition, book, podcast, website, and more
Call Me Lola: In Search of Mother (Hatje Cantz, November 2024) is the culmination of Israeli-American photographer Loli Kantor’s extensive 20 year process retracing her own history through surveying and photographing family archives, as well as present-day places and geographies meaningful to her and her family's history such as Poland, France, Ukraine, Germany, and Israel.
