Bringing to life a unique cultural gallery of both known and unknown figures of the early 1860s with an astonishing veracity, this remarkable photographic collection is a visual documentation of South Africa's people. Aesthetically stunning and of surprising technical quality for the period taken, this intriguing collage represents the life work of 25-year-old German doctor and anthropologist Gustav Fritsch, who utilized the relatively new photographic medium to complement his scientific expedition to the South African landscape. Reflecting how the native tribes remained untouched by the social and industrial revolution around them, and accompanied by essays that set in context Fritsch's outlook on racial discovery and theory, this invaluable photographic insight is an artistic and historically significant addition to South Africa's cultural heritage.

This tiny treasure is a glorious tribute to Ansel Adams and to the vanishing landscape he loved. In 1941 Ansel Adams was hired by the United States Department of the Interior to photograph America's national parks for a series of murals that would celebrate the country's natural heritage. Because of the escalation of World War II, the project was suspended after less than a year, but not before Adams had produced this group of breathtaking images, which illustrate both his early innovations and the shape of his later, legendary career as America's foremost landscape photographer. The invitation to photograph the nation's parklands was the perfect assignment for Adams, as it allowed him to express his deepest convictions as artist, conservationist, and citizen. These stunning photographs of the natural geysers and terraces in Yellowstone, the rocks and ravines in the Grand Canyon, the winding rivers and majestic mountains in Glacier and Grand Teton national parks, the mysterious Carlsbad Caverns, the architecture of ancient Indian villages, and many other evocative views of the American West demonstrate the genius of Adams' technical and aesthetic inventiveness. In these glorious, seminal images we see the inspired reverence for the wilderness that has made Ansel Adams' work a most enduring influence on the intertwining spirits of art and environmentalism, both so necessary for the preservation of our natural world.

In the 1890s, Berlin artist, sculptor and teacher Karl Blossfeldt started to photograph plants, seeds and other illustrative material from nature for the purpose of teaching his students about the patterns and designs found in natural forms. His close-ups of the smallest plant parts, magnified up to thirty times their natural size, are startling as the plants appear geometric and sculptural. Published in 1928, his first collection of photographs Urformen der Kunst (later translated into English as Art Forms in Nature) became an international bestseller and remains one of the most significant photo books of the twentieth century. Karl Blossfeldt: Variations is the first book-length monograph to examine the reception of Blossfeldt's work. Drawing on unpublished materials, it analyzes the photographs' replication in teaching mate- rials, pattern books and art books, and also in the pages of the illustrated press. The six chapters of the richly illustrated study trace the paths Blossfeldt's legendary plant motifs described as specimens, illustrations, patterns, analogues, models and abstractions from 1890 to 1945. Thematic excursions into the present, illustrating the rediscovery of Blossfeldt's motifs in design and architecture over the past twenty years, offer a contemporary perspective on the famous German photographer.

From his studio in the heart of New York, Australian-born Anton Bruehl created inventive and perfectly realized color photographs for advertisements in top American magazines such as "Vogue" and the "New Yorker." Seen by the millions of readers, his ads had a dedicated following eliciting bags of fan mail.

As well as advertising, Bruehl produced evocative images of stars of stage and screen, other celebrities, seasonal child studies, and his personal photography in the classic documentary tradition including his award-winning photo book "Mexico" (1933) and "Tropic Patterns "(1970).

Essays cover:

- the early lives of the Bruehl brothers in Australia

- Anton's success in New York

- his most famous and whimsical advertising campaigns

- fascinating details on Bruehl-Bourges color processes, which gave Breuhl's photographs their distinctive look

- his time in Mexico and his award-winning book.

Drawn from the National Gallery of Australia's extensive Anton Bruehl collection of black & white and color photographs, magazine prints and printers proofs, this book is a must for anyone interested in photography, advertizing and popular culture.

The first comprehensive, posthumous monograph and retrospective on Bernd and Hilla Becher, best known for their photographs of industrial structures in Europe and North America For more than five decades, Bernd (1931-2007) and Hilla (1934-2015) Becher collaborated on photographs of industrial architecture in Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Great Britain, and the United States. This sweeping monograph features the Bechers' quintessential pictures, which present water towers, gas tanks, blast furnaces, and more as sculptural objects. Beyond the Bechers' iconic Typologies, the book includes Bernd's early drawings, Hilla's independent photographs, and excerpts from their notes, sketchbooks, and journals. The book's authors offer new insights into the development of the artists' process, their work's conceptual underpinnings, the photographers' relationship to deindustrialization, and the artists' legacy. An essay by award-winning cultural historian Lucy Sante and an interview with Max Becher, the artists' son, make this volume an unrivaled look into the Bechers' art, life, and career. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press Exhibition Schedule: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (July 11-October 30, 2022) San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (December 17, 2022-April 2, 2023)

In the 1950s the space race between the USA and the USSR was well and truly on, and was for both a matter of pride and propaganda. But before man ventured into the cosmos, his four-legged friends would pave the way for space exploration. The first canine cosmonaut was Laika, meaning 'barker'. The little stray could never have anticipated that she would one day float 200 miles above the Moscow streets. She would be canonized as a proletarian hero, appearing on stamps, postcards and souvenirs. Her successors were Belka and Strelka, the first dogs to successfully return safely to Earth, and with them, the cult of the space dog was born. This fascinating book tells the story of the space dogs, illustrated with legendary photographer Martin Parr's vintage space dog memorabilia. In a regime that eschewed celebrating individual achievement, these dogs became Soviet superstars, with a vast array of merchandise, books and films in their honour.

A classic, indeed perhaps the best of the Mapplethorpe books. And for many most certainly the most typical Mapplethorpe, now available once again thanks to this re-edition. The Black Book, first published in 1986, presents 96 formally stringent and highly erotic nudes, all of them photographs of black men, either as full figures, or staged as details, as fragments of their bodies. Stylized as classical statues or provocatively in all their presence and sensuous radiance. Black-and-white photography was Mapplethorpe's preferred medium. And his obsessive aesthetics was based on completely mastering it, as this enabled him to visualize any number of tonal gradations and penetrate deep into the very pores of the gleaming black skin. It is a method that reached a climax in these images. The Black Book, Mapplethorpe s homage to the black male body, has always been one of the most important visual contributions to the discussion on beauty, sensuality, and sexuality in photography.

Kasos is the southernmost island of the Dodecanese, lying between Carpathos and Crete. Roughly 11 miles long and four miles wide, with a rocky, mountainous landscape, Kasos was famed from antiquity as a centre of shipbuilding, and played a role in the Greek War of Independence. But with the advent of steam, the island’s shipyard closed, and its population dwindled. Today some one thousand people remain on the island, living in five small villages full of historic homes and churches. The islanders produce agricultural products of exceptional quality; preserve their distinctive culinary, musical, and dance traditions; and welcome a small number of adventurous travellers to their sparkling beaches. Robert A. McCabe’s stunning black-and-white photographs of Kasos, most taken in 1965, offer a unique record of the island’s people, architecture, and natural landscapes. In a stark contrast to the transformation undergone by other Greek islands, many of the scenes depicted in McCabe’s photographs remain almost unchanged today. The text, by a distinguished Greek journalist born on Kasos, brings to life the places and personalities pictured in this book, which will appeal to all travellers off the beaten track.

No one uses the camera like the photographer Niko Luoma. He is not interested in capturing the world in front of his lens. He uses light to create his own visual spheres. Using up to a thousand multiple exposures he applies individual elements of color and form to the negative, layer by layer. Meticulous calculations and geometrical skills are the necessary foundation for this. The results are abstract photographs of impressive, colorful intensity and luminosity. This book of photos is based on the series Adaptions, which reproduces famous works by other artists. Luoma presents a fascinating visual game in which the independent charisma of the photographs acts in concert with its reverence toward Bacon, Hockney, Van Gogh, or Picasso. With tongue in cheek, Luoma thus realizes the avant-garde’s desire to liberate photography from reproducing reality, allowing it to become an art.

In our latest Collective Shorts series, photographer Aaron Tilley explores the notion of narratives and storytelling through carefully constructed and captured still images. Executed in a manner that is playful, yet driven with tension, Tilley's photography exacts an anticipation of the moment that is about to happen. Momentum is a collection of some of Tilley's best work to date. His photography continuously captivates the viewer, leading us to something perhaps unexpected, out of context or that may cause us some unease but in a fun and highly-dramatic way. The aesthetic is bold and well-designed with each image portraying a story at a paused point in time allowing the narrative of the image to be interpreted by the viewer. With this, the viewer should enjoy the surreal element to the work and embrace this style presented throughout the book.