Easton's photographs, alongside texts by writer, poet and social researcher Abdul Aziz Hafiz, aim to confront stereotypes and question the dangerous over-simplification of the challenges facing such communities. They do so by presenting the contemporary experience of residents as an 'alternative history telling'. The black and white photographs in the book were all made in an area less than half a mile square in Blackburn during 2019 and 2020. Working with a large-format wooden field camera, Easton spent long days and weeks in the neighbourhood talking to residents and sometimes making pictures. The project melds image and text - Easton's portraiture and landscapes combined with poetry and an essay by Aziz Hafiz and with the testimonies of residents. This long-form collaboration acknowledges the issues and impacts of social deprivation, housing, unemployment, immigration and representation, as well as past and present foreign policy. The result is a collective and nuanced portrait of the town - a sensitive response to the oversimplistic representation of such communities in both the media and by government, which deny the right of Bank Top to tell its own story.

Henry Taunt was one of the great photographers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He was a master of the camera and possessed of a profoundly creative sense of scene and composition. First published in 1973, this collection of Henry Taunt's finest work includes artistic prints as well as images which are of importance to architectural and social historians. Sympathetically introduced and captioned by Bryan Brown, this book is a striking visual essay on the Victorian and Edwardian eras and a magnificent record of places and their past.

Clive Arrowsmith is a celebrated London-based international photographer. After leaving art school where he studied painting and design, he began taking photographs whilst working as a graphic designer for television. Leaving television to work as a photographer, he soon gained commissions from leading fashion magazines, most notably, British and French Vogue, Harpers, The Sunday Times Colour Magazine, Vanity Fair, Esquire U.S.A, and F.T. "How to Spend It". Clive continues to work in this genre in both editorial and advertising photography and is equally known for his music and celebrity images: Paul McCartney, Wings, Mick Jagger, Jeff Beck, George Harrison, Daniel Barenboim, Anna Netrebko, Art Garfunkel, Def Leppard, Prince Charles, Michael Caine and Damien Hirst to name a few. Clive is also an accomplished landscape and still life photographer and is the only photographer to have shot the Pirelli Calendar two years in succession. Having worked on many major stills advertising campaigns; De Beers, Revlon, G.H.D.Morello, Caroline Castigliano, Lexus, Hassleblad etc, Clive has continued to broaden his creative scope moving on to direct commercials for Heinz, Revlon, Hamlet Cigars (winner of The Silver Lion Cannes Film Festival), Rapeed Sunglasses, Greenmail Whitney Beer, music videos such artists like Lee Griffiths, Jamiroquai, Jools Holland, ZTT and Def Leppard, and album covers such as Wings' 'Band on the Run. '

"Penelope Umbrico: Photographs" offers a radical reinterpretation of everyday consumer and vernacular images. As the artist describes, she works "within the virtual world of consumer marketing and social media, traveling through the relentless flow of seductive images, objects and information that surrounds us, searching for decisive moments--but in these worlds, decisive moments are cultural absurdities." Umbrico finds these moments in the printed pages of consumer product mail-order cataloguess, travel and leisure brochures, and online sites such as Craigslist, eBay and Flickr. By identifying and isolating image typologies--candy-colored horizons and sunsets, books used as props--the farcical and surreal nature of the lingua franca of consumerism and recreation is brought to new light. "Penelope Umbrico: Photographs" presents a unique and challenging approach to quintessential issues of representation in contemporary culture, including how images are used to construct and communicate consumer desire, and whether or not the growing volume of images we view online fosters a critical visual literacy. This volume, Umbrico's first monograph, is accompanied by a series of essays, appendices of source material, excerpts from theoretical works and other material serving as resources for engaging further with the work and issues involved.

Robert Mapplethorpe's black-and-white Polaroid photographs of the 1970s--a medium in which he established the style that would bring him international acclaim--are brought together in this new paperback edition. Critically praised for his finely modeled and classically composed photographs, Robert Mapplethorpe remains intensely controversial and enormously popular. This book brings together almost 300 images from the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation's archive and private collections to provide a critical view of Mapplethorpe's formative years as an artist, revealing the themes that would inspire Mapplethorpe throughout his career. Included is a selection of color Polaroids and objects incorporating his early "instant" photography. Some images convey a disarming tenderness and vulnerability, others a toughness and immediacy that would give way in later years to more classical form. The author traces the development of Mapplethorpe's use of instant photography over a period of five years, from 1970 to 1975, when the artist worked mainly in this medium. The images include self-portraits; figure studies; still lifes; portraits of lovers and friends such as Patti Smith, Sam Wagstaff, and Marianne Faithful; and observations of everyday objects. Marked by a spontaneity and creative curiosity, these fragile images offer an illuminating contrast to the glossy perfection of the work for which Mapplethorpe is best known, allowing us a more personal glimpse of his artistry.

Gillian Laub’s photographs of her family from the past twenty years, now collected in one volume, explore the ways society’s biggest questions are revealed in our most intimate relationships. Family Matters zeroes in on the artist’s family as an example of the way Donald Trump’s knack for sowing discord and division has impacted communities, individuals, and households across the country. As Laub explains, “I began to unpack my relationship to my relatives—which turned out to be much more indicative of my relationship to the outside world than I had ever thought, and the key to exploring questions I had about the effects of wealth, vanity, childhood, aging, fragility, political conflict, religious traditions, and mortality.” These issues became tangible in 2016, when Laub and her parents found themselves on opposing sides of the most divisive presidential election in recent US history; and further exacerbated in the lead-up to the 2020 election, in the wake of a global pandemic and protests in support of Black Lives Matter. Family Matters reveals Laub’s willingness to confront ideas of privilege and unity, and to expose the fault lines and vulnerabilities of her relatives and herself. Ultimately, Family Matters celebrates the resiliency and power of family—including the family we choose—in the face of divisive rhetoric. In doing so, it holds up a highly personalized mirror to the social and political divides in the United States today.

The bestselling behind-the-scenes look at the career of the legendary photographer – now in a new, compact format

Now in paperback and re-sized for easy reading, Steve McCurry Untold is the only book to tell the fascinating stories behind McCurry's most iconic photographs. It explores the travels, methods, and magic that gave birth to his evocative images, delving deep into the true stories behind McCurry's most important assignments for National Geographic and beyond - including his reunion with the now-legendary 'Afghan Girl'. Each story includes McCurry's first-hand account alongside specially commissioned essays, ephemera, and personal photographs from his private archive.

Featuring beautiful reproductions of McCurry's photographs spanning a broad range of themes and subjects and ephemera such as snapshots, journal extracts, maps, and newspaper clippings, Steve McCurry Untold is a living biography of one of the most imaginative documentary photographers working today.

More than 50,000 copies of the hardback edition sold worldwide, it was translated into seven languages and became an international bestseller.

This lavish fourth volume in Abrams’ Slim Aarons collection revels in this photographer’s decades-long love affair with Italy. From breathtaking aerials of the Sicilian countryside to intimate portraits of celebrities and high society taken in magnificent villas, Slim Aarons: La Dolce Vita captures the essence of “the good life.” Slim Aarons first visited Italy as a combat photographer during World War II and later moved to Rome to shoot for Life magazine, yet even after relocating to New York, he would return to Italy almost every year for the rest of his life. The images collected here document the aristocracy, cultural elite, and beautiful people, such as Marcello Mastroianni, Ursula Andress, Joan Fontaine, and Tyrone Power, who lived la dolce vita in Italy’s most fabulous places during the last 50 years. The introduction by Christopher Sweet shares stories from Aarons’s years in Italy and new insights about his life and career. Also available from Slim Aarons: Slim Aarons: Women, Slim Aarons: Once Upon a Time, Slim Aarons: A Place in the Sun, and Poolside with Slim Aarons. Praise for Slim Aarons: La Dolce Vita: “Nostalgia-soaked images.” —Harper’s Bazaar “Sumptuous images.” —Publishers Weekly “It’s the next best thing to time travel.” —DuJour magazine

Features stunning aerial photographs of the Deep-water Horizon Gulf oil spill. The full scale of the disaster is revealed in these photographs where the human presence takes the form of tiny toy-like helicopters and ships. Only the billowing smoke from a great fire signals the true destruction caused.

A mind-blowing genre crossing deep purple velvet adventure (formerly known as "BOOK"). This publication concerns a multimedia project consisting of visual arts, micro stories and music, with a history on Instagram.

A testament to the art of colour composition, this book - art directed by Wong himself and produced to the highest printing standard - brings together a complete and refined body of images that are evocative, timeless and completely transporting. Rounding out the volume's special treatment is the first publication use of the 45/90 font, designed by Henrik Kubel, of London-based A2-TYPE. The book also features a section that reveals the creative and technical process of Wong's method, from identifying the right scene to making a good composition, from capturing the essence of a moment to enhancing colour values and deepening an image's impact - insights that will be invaluable to admirers and photography enthusiasts alike.

Built in 1883, the Hotel Chelsea, on 23rd Street in New York City, quickly became the most famous and notorious hotel in the world. From day one, it has been a center of artistic and bohemian activity, with notable residents like actor Ethan Hawke, painter Phillip Taaffe, magazine editor Sally Singer, filmmaker Milos Forman, poet and painter Rene Ricard, beat poet Herbert Huncke, and novelist Joseph O'Neill. This photographic collage of 76 images and vignettes was gathered by a longtime hotel resident prior to the hotel's restoration under new ownership. It unpacks suitcases of memories with atmospheric photographs of residents and guests from the past 20 years. As the author notes, "Life at the Chelsea Hotel arrived in fragments, signs, things heard, and things felt, rather than chronologically charted."

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, a radical cultural scene emerged in cities across the globe, finding expression in the galleries, nightclubs, and bedrooms of New York, London, Los Angeles, and Rome. In Lyle Ashton Harris: Today I Shall Judge Nothing That Occurs , the artist's archive of 35 mm Ektachrome images are presented alongside journal entries and recollections from a host of artistic and cultural figures. It offers a unique document of what Harris has described as "ephemeral moments and emblematic figures shot in the 1980s and '90s, against a backdrop of seismic shifts in the art world, the emergence of multiculturalism, the second wave of AIDS activism, and incipient globalization." As a young artist experimenting with installation, performance, and collage at the time, Harris obsessively photographed his friends, lovers, and individuals who either were, or would become, figures of influence, such as Marlon Riggs, Cornel West, bell hooks, Stuart Hall, Klaus Biesenbach, Nan Goldin, Catherine Opie, Glenn Ligon, and others. The images record the confluence of multiple international communities- gathering points for the exchange of ideas and the development of theoretical positions on art and culture that continue to resonate to this day. Together, these photographs and the journals not only sketch a personal history of a unique time of importance to contemporary art, but also show the development and shaping of Harris's eye and influences as an artist.

Beautiful, haunting photographs of abandoned places in the USSR. Once thriving buildings now ravaged by nature and time are the subject of this fascinating, coffee-table book. Relics of the Soviet conquest of space, Moscow Pioneer camps, remnants of propaganda along a journey sparsely dotted with statues of Stalin or Lenin, from traditional Moldovan houses to ghosts of the Caucasian wars, by way of petro-chemical factories in the Donbass ... this report invites the reader to relive, through its striking pictures, more than a hundred years of history, from the beginnings of the Soviet period to the legacy of a communist era now fast fading from memory. Terence Abela has spent nine years travelling across the former USSR unearthing fragments from its past. His love of history, of photographing relics of the past and discovering the unknown, have combined to create this work. Driven by a desire to preserve the heritage abandoned by states that lurch between the threat of nationalism, dictatorship, wars and the will to invent a new history for themselves, he appeals to us through his pictures to protect these mementos which are at risk of disappearing in the not too-distant future.

To celebrate the acquisition of the archive of distinguished artist Tom Phillips, the Bodleian Library asked the artist to assemble and design a series of books drawing on his themed collection of over 50,000 photographic postcards. These encompass the first half of the twentieth century, a period in which, thanks to the ever cheaper medium of photography, ordinary people could afford to purchase their own portraits. These portraits allowed individuals to create and embellish their own self images, presenting themselves as they wished to be seen within the trends and social mores of their time. Each book in the series contains two hundred images chosen from a visually rich vein of social history. Their back covers also feature thematically linked paintings, specially created for each title, from Phillips's signature work, " A Humument." "Weddings" captures all the excitement and drama of the stages of the ceremony from preparations to wedding vehicles to family and friends in lively scenes in churches and homes. These unique and visually stunning books offer a rich glimpse of forgotten times and will be greatly valued by art and history lovers alike. "These images are captivating visual vignettes. We may not know who the subjects are, but the postcards offer us a glimpse of their interests, their time, and their world. Tom Phillips's exceptional collection gives us a fascinating chance to retrieve something of these lives."--Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London "Picture postcards from a century ago capture unique moments in time and place and are a wonderful social history record. Tom Phillips is adept at seeking out and choosing amazingly evocative postcard images."--Brian Lund, editor, "Picture Postcard Monthly"

This book is a reproduction of an artwork, bearing the same title, by Santu Mofokeng. The work, which is as much a research project as it is a work of art, is comprised of private photographs collected, scanned, and retouched over a number of years by the artist. Each of the original images were commissioned by urban black working and middle-class families in South Africa between 1890 and 1950, a time when the government was entrenching its infamous policies towards those designated as "natives." Painterly in style, the images evoke the artifices of Victorian photography and reveal something about how the people captured within the frame imagined themselves, asking meditative questions on the meaning of African imagery: "Who were these people?," "What were their aspirations?," "Are these images evidence of mental colonization or did they serve to challenge prevailing images of `The African' in the western world?" In this work Mofokeng thus analyses the sensibilities, aspirations and self-image of the urban black population in South Africa and its desire for representation and social recognition in times of colonial rule and suppression. This book contains the complete sequence of slides with reproduced photographs and Mofokeng's own texts. The Black Photo Album / Look at Me: 1890-1950 also features selections from Mofokeng's field notes and the original, unretouched photographs, published for the first time.