From basic sustenance to savory repasts, food awakens the senses and touches both private and public life. It can be political, religious, aspirational, commercial, creative, symbolic, national, and regional. Food’s complexity of form and meaning—and the fact that it’s often at hand—have made it a much-photographed subject throughout the history of photography. Interest in both food photography and food as a subject has risen in recent years, and this is the first book to cover food photography’s rich history—not only in fine art photography, but also in crossover genres such as commercial and scientific photography and photojournalism. Susan Bright’s introduction and commentary accompanying the photographs bring insight and intelligence to this spectacular subject, and trace the progression of the genre from photography’s beginnings to present day, featuring artists from all eras—Roger Fenton, Nickolas Muray, Edward Weston, Irving Penn, Stephen Shore, Laura Letinsky, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Martin Parr, to name a few. Through key pictures, Bright explores the important figures and movements of food photography to provide an essential primer.

Now revised and expanded, this essential survey presents the work of eighty of the most important artist-photographers in the world.
The book is divided into seven sections—Portrait, Landscape, Narrative, Object, Fashion, Document, and City—that explore the diverse subjects, styles, and methods of the leading practitioners. Introductions to each section outline the genres and consider why photographers are attracted to certain themes, and how issues like memory, time, objectivity, politics, identity, and the everyday are tied to their approaches. Each photographer’s work is accompanied by Susan Bright’s commentaries and by quotations from the artist.
Leading artists such as Andreas Gursky, Cindy Sherman, Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin and Martin Parr, Gregory Crewdson, Candida Höfer, Gabriel Orozco, and Wolfgang Tillmans are featured alongside emerging international figures, including Viviane Sassen, LaToya Ruby Frazier, and Leigh Ladure. The introduction explores the historical relationship between art and photography from the early nineteenth century, and a new final chapter looks at the changes photography has undergone in recent years. 254 full-color and 21 black-and-white photographs

In the previous century, photography helped shape art; in the current one, it has begun to dominate it. Not only are major international museums and galleries mounting blockbuster exhibitions, but art photographers are also being celebrated as contemporary masters and their work commands unprecedented prices. This indispensable survey presents the work of 76 of the most important and best-known art photographers in the world: Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Sophie Calle, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Allan Sekula, Boris Mikhailov, Inez van Lamsweerde, Stephen Meisel, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Sam Taylor-Wood, and many more are featured in its pages. Susan Bright, former Curator of Photographs at London's National Portrait Gallery, has organized the book into seven sections--City, Portrait, Document, Object, Landscape, Fashion, and Narrative--and provides an introductory essay for each. Along with each photographer's works, presented in sequence within those divisions, Bright's commentaries provide context and depth, and quotations from the artists themselves offer valuable insights into the motivation, inspiration, and intentions behind the work. Following in the tradition of Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 and the Photography Speaks series, this volume will become an essential resource for curators, collectors, scholars, practitioners, and anyone who wants comprehensive, up-to-date exposure to the state of the medium today. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Lavishly illustrated and accessible, this dazzling array of photographs by seventy-five of the world’s foremost contemporary photographers focusses on self-portraiture.
From intimate images of introspection and those that challenge notions of ethnicity and sexuality, to dramatic, stylized photographs of dream-like scenarios, Auto Focus shows how one of the longest-established artistic genres continues to fascinate artists today.
Susan Bright provides a clear guide for readers through this significant and dynamic genre, showing how issues of identity – whether national, sexual, racial, personal or artistic – are key to understanding the work of many of today’s leading photographers.

In the previous century, photography helped shape art; in the current one, it has begun to dominate it. Not only are major international museums and galleries mounting blockbuster exhibitions, but art photographers are also being celebrated as contemporary masters and their work commands unprecedented prices. This indispensable survey presents the work of 76 of the most important and best-known art photographers in the world: Andreas Gursky, Thomas Struth, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Sophie Calle, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Allan Sekula, Boris Mikhailov, Inez van Lamsweerde, Stephen Meisel, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Sam Taylor-Wood, and many more are featured in its pages. Susan Bright, former Curator of Photographs at London's National Portrait Gallery, has organized the book into seven sections--City, Portrait, Document, Object, Landscape, Fashion, and Narrative--and provides an introductory essay for each. Along with each photographer's works, presented in sequence within those divisions, Bright's commentaries provide context and depth, and quotations from the artists themselves offer valuable insights into the motivation, inspiration, and intentions behind the work. Following in the tradition of Photography Past/Forward: Aperture at 50 and the Photography Speaks series, this volume will become an essential resource for curators, collectors, scholars, practitioners, and anyone who wants comprehensive, up-to-date exposure to the state of the medium today.