Helmut Newton (1920-2004) always showed a healthy disdain for the easy or predictable, so it's no surprise that the SUMO was an irresistible project. The idea of a book the size of a private exhibition, with spectacular images reproduced to state-of-the-art origination and printing standards, emerged from an open, experimental dialogue between photographer and publisher. With the SUMO weighing in-boxed and shrink-wrapped-at 35.4 kg (just under 80 pounds), Newton created a landmark book that stood head and shoulders above anything previously attempted, both in terms of conceptual extravagance and technical specifications. Published in an edition of 10,000 signed and numbered copies, the SUMO sold out soon after publication and quickly multiplied its value. It now features in numerous collections around the world, including New York's Museum of Modern Art. The legendary copy number one, signed by more than 100 of the book's featured celebrities, broke the record for the most expensive book published in the 20th century, sold at an auction in Berlin on April 6, 2000 for 620,000 German marks-about 317,000 euros. Now, this XL edition celebrates 20 years of SUMO, the result of a project conceived by Helmut Newton some years ago. Revised by his wife June, the volume gathers 464 images and a new booklet that takes us through the making-of this publishing venture-a spectacular tribute to the larger-than-life Helmut Newton, now in a friendly format. Images (c) The Helmut Newton Estate / Maconochie Photography

Finalist, 2021 Writers' League of Texas Book Award Regarded as both a legend and a villain, the critic Dave Hickey has inspired generations of artists, art critics, musicians, and writers. His 1993 book The Invisible Dragon became a cult hit for its potent and provocative critique of the art establishment and its call to reconsider the role of beauty in art. His next book, 1997's Air Guitar, introduced a new kind of cultural criticism-simultaneously insightful, complicated, vulnerable, and down-to-earth-that propelled Hickey to fame as an iconoclastic thinker, loved and loathed in equal measure, whose influence extended beyond the art world. Far from Respectable is a focused, evocative exploration of Hickey's work, his impact on the field of art criticism, and the man himself, from his Huck Finn childhood to his drug-fueled periods as both a New York gallerist and Nashville songwriter to, finally, his anointment as a tenured professor and MacArthur Fellow. Drawing on in-person interviews with Hickey, his friends and family, and art world comrades and critics, Daniel Oppenheimer examines the controversial writer's distinctive takes on a broad range of subjects, including Norman Rockwell, Robert Mapplethorpe, academia, Las Vegas, basketball, country music, and considers how Hickey and his vision of an "ethical, cosmopolitan paganism" built around a generous definition of art is more urgently needed than ever before.

‘Look beyond the obvious. Street photography is what you make it’. Craig Whitehead’s shots of the streets are unique – his sense of colour, composition, storytelling and timing have earned him a hugely dedicated following. But how does he consistently take such special images, and what are the key creative takeaways to bring to your own photography? Find Your Frame is Whitehead’s personal how-to guide to a craft he has spent many years honing. Across 20 short, sharp lessons, he reveals his secrets, his tips, his creative approach, his sources of inspiration, and his way of seeing, shooting and anticipating the streets. Illustrated throughout with example images, and full of creative wisdom and advice, this is the start of your journey toward better street photography and a more creative way of visual thinking.

Don McCullin is one of four new titles being published in Autumn 2007 in Thames & Hudson's acclaimed 'Photofile' series. Each book brings together the best work of the world's greatest photographers in an attractive format and at an easily affordable price. Handsome and collectable, the books are printed to the highest standards. Each one contains some sixty full-page reproductions printed in superb duotone, together with a critical introduction and a full bibliography.

Angus Stewart has spent 10 years backstage with London's burlesque community, getting to know the performers and documenting their shared world to create what he calls 'a family album'. From the beginning, his focus was on the personalities, rather than the performances. He deliberately eschews the 'big reveal'. Instead, his photographs capture the friendships, the laughter and the camaraderie that characterise the burlesque scene. We are introduced to a thriving community that values dedication and loyalty, and where the exotic is always laced with humour; and we hear from performers Rara Avis, Belle de Beauvoir, Cerise Rei, Lady Cheek, Lady May, Lynn Ruth Miller and Vixen Victoire. Burlesque can be provocative, it can be political, and it can be serious. But it can also be a lot of fun. 'I discovered that while some performers earn a living from burlesque, most have other jobs - anything from seamstresses to doctors, to company directors. This huge melting pot of professional experience, coupled with a variety of reasons for wanting to perform, means that personal development is encouraged. It's an incredibly supportive community, and I wanted to try to capture that spirit.' - Angus Stewart

For the first time ever, a photographic coffee-table book celebrates South Africa’s most important national parks and nature reserves. South Africa’s Wildest Places by photographer, author and adventurer Scott Ramsay features 30 of the country’s most important and beautiful protected areas, including all 19 national parks and 11 provincial reserves. As one might expect, the 400-page book is big (30cm x 30cm) and weighty (3kg). South Africa’s Wildest Places is the ultimate photographic reference for the country’s famous natural heritage, it’s diverse wildlife and it’s awe-inspiring scenery. Few people know South Africa’s wild areas as well as Ramsay, who travelled for three years to more than 40 of South Africa’s national parks and nature reserves. He spent several weeks – sometimes months – in each park, exploring each one extensively, taking beautiful photos and interviewing rangers and researchers. Over three years, he visited each park at least twice, sometimes as many as four times. From the huge arid lands of the Kgalagadi to the teeming wildlife of Kruger, from the fynbos- rich Table Mountain National Park to the wild coast of Mkambati, Ramsay is happiest when immersed in wild places, and his enthusiasm and devotion to conservation is reflected in the range and quality of his photography.

This visually striking book is the first to explore the oeuvre of the celebrated multidisciplinary Nigerian artist, and its themes of identity, globalization, migration, cultural heritage, and African postcolonial identities.

From his birth in a rural village in Nigeria to his unorthodox ascent as a global art star Victor Ehikhamenor is garnering worldwide attention for his vibrant and incisive works that engage contemporary art, African history, and the postcolonial politics of global Black identity.
Drawing inspiration from his Nigerian roots, Ehikhamenor fuses tradition with contemporary expression through intricate patterns, symbolic motifs, and a rich visual language that weaves together the threads of mythology and cultural heritage. Brimming with boldly colored photographs and reproductions, this book focuses on Ehikhamenor’s most recent work such as Daydream Esoterica, Saints and Sanctums, Still Standing, and A Biography of the Forgotten, investigating them through a transcultural analysis of mobility, circulation, networks, and connectivity.
It explores seven key aspects of the artist’s practice—rosaries, perforations, installations, paintings, drawings, collage, and sculpture—to show how he creates complex portraits of African peoples and African spaces.

Garry Fabian Miller's Dark Room is a photography book unlike any other. At its heart is the artist's description of a life lived making pictures between the dark and the light, a deeply personal account woven against the history of photography from the moment of its birth in the 1830s to its decline, and some would say death, in the digital age almost two hundred years later. It is a memoir that reads at times like a manifesto, at others like a confession; a last testament to the dark room as both a site for the imagination, and a physical space for the alchemy that William Henry Fox Talbot once described as 'a little bit of magic realised'. Dark Room charts Miller's work over five decades, shifting from a camera-based practice in early career to the abstract picture making for which he has become internationally recognised, working without a camera to experiment with the possibilities of light as both medium and subject. At its core is the relationship with nature and place that has so sustained his way of life, and specifically with his home on Dartmoor and the cycle of daily walks that have been at the core of his practice for thirty years. The book also features an essay on Miller's work by his friend the potter and writer Edmund de Waal and technical notes by Martin Barnes, senior photography curator of the Victoria and Albert Museum.