It is hard enough to find thesequalities in trained photographers with the benefit of schooling and mentors and a community of fellow artists and aficionados supporting and rewarding their efforts. It is incredibly rare to find it in someone with no formal training and no network of peers.Yet Vivian Maier is all of these things, a professional nanny, who from the 1950s until the 1990s took over 100,000 photographs worldwide—from France to New York City to Chicago and dozens of other countries—and yet showed the results to no one. The photos are amazing both for the breadth of the work and for the high quality of the humorous, moving, beautiful, and raw images of all facets of city life in America’s post-war golden age.It wasn’t until local historian John Maloof purchased a box of Maier’s negatives from a Chicago auction house and began collecting and championing her marvelous work just a few years ago that any of it saw the light of day. Presented here for the first time in print, Vivian Maier: Street Photographer collects the best of her incredible, unseen body of work.

    Slight of build, shy by nature, prone to fits of depression, the 28-year-old Beijing photographer was nonetheless at the forefront of Chinese artists' battle for creative freedom. Like his champion Ai Weiwei, Ren was controversial in his homeland and wildly popular in the rest of the world. He said, -I don't really view my work as taboo, because I don't think so much in cultural context, or political context. I don't intentionally push boundaries, I just do what I do.- Why? Because his models, friends, and increasingly, fans, are naked, often outdoors, high in the trees or on the terrifyingly vertiginous rooftops of Beijing, stacked like building blocks, heads wrapped in octopi, body cavities sprouting phone cords and flowers, whatever enters his mind at the moment. He denies his intentions are sexual, and there is a clean detachment about even his most extreme images: the urine, the insertions, the many, many erections. In a 2013 interview VICE magazine asked, -there are a lot of dicks ... do you just like dicks?- Ren responded, -It's not just dicks I'm interested in, I like to portray every organ in a fresh, vivid and emotional way.- True though that may be, the penises Ren photographed are not just fresh and vivid, but unusually large, making one wonder just where he met his friends. In the same piece, Hang also stated, -Gender isn't important when I'm taking pictures, it only matters to me when I'm having sex, - making him a pioneer of gender inclusiveness. Young fans still eagerly flock to his website, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr accounts. His photographs, all produced on film, have been the subject of over 20 solo and 70 group shows in his brief six-year career, in cities as disparate as Tokyo, Athens, Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Vienna, and yes, even Beijing. He self-published 16 monographs, in tiny print runs, that now sell for up to $600. TASCHEN's Ren Hang is his only international collection, covering his entire career, with well-loved favorites and many never-before-seen photos of men, women, Beijing, and those many, many erections. We take solace remembering Ren's joy when he first held the book, shared by his long-time partner Jiaqi, featured on the cover.Text in English, French, and German

    Martin Parr is Europe's premier contemporary photographer, and The Last Resort is the book that is considered to have launched his career. Taken at the height of the Thatcher years, it depicts the "great British seaside" in all its garish glory. Described by some as cruel and voyeuristic and by others as a stunning satire on the state of Britain, early editions are now much sought after by collectors worldwide. Includes a new essay by Gerry Badger, photographer, architect, curator, and critic.

    

    After his death, the contents of his studio, including thousands of glass negatives, were sold off for five dollars. For years the fragile negatives sat forgotten and deteriorating in cardboard boxes in an open carport. How did it happen, then, that the most implausible of events took place? That Disfarmer’s haunting portraits were retrieved from oblivion, that today they sell for upwards of $12,000 each at posh New York art galleries; his photographs proclaimed works of art by prestigious critics and journals and exhibited around the world? The story of Disfarmer’s rise to fame is a colorful, improbable, and ultimately fascinating one that involves an unlikely assortment of individuals. Would any of this have happened if a young New York photographer hadn't been so in love with a pretty model that he was willing to give up his career for her; if a preacher’s son from Arkansas hadn't spent 30 years in the Army Corps of Engineers mapping the U.S. from an airplane; if a magazine editor hadn't felt a strange and powerful connection to the work? The cast of characters includes these, plus a restless and wealthy young Chicago aristocrat and even a grandson of FDR. It’s a compelling story which reveals how these diverse people were part of a chain of events whose far-reaching consequences none of them could have foreseen, least of all the strange and reclusive genius of Heber Springs. Until now, the whole story has not been told.

    These landmark images now have a clarity and depth not achievable in earlier editions.

    The unprecedented scope of this collection provides the opportunity to study his more composed, aesthetically structured images alongside his snapshots, which offer a more anecdotal account of Doisneau's Paris. Organized thematically, the book leads us on an entrancing tour through the gardens of Paris, along the Seine, and through the crowds of Parisians who define their beloved city. More than 600 photographs-many rare, forgotten, and previously unpublished-are assembled in this beautiful volume to create a unique portrait of Paris. From toddlers scrambling to cross rue de Rivoli to fresh-faced accordionists, from elegant dog walkers to exuberant roller skaters, and from the indelible kiss in front of the Hétel de Ville to cyclists beneath the Eiffel Tower, the magic of Paris in black and white is a timeless treasure. The photographs, edited by Doisneau's daughter, are complemented by citations from the photographer himself, which reveal his profound fascination with the city where he lived and worked.

    But outside the lab, Herzog also devoted himself to what was, at the time, an unusual and even frowned-upon medium, at least artistically: color photography. Laboring away as a virtually anonymous pioneer in this field, some 20 years before William Eggleston's watershed show at the Museum of Modern Art, Herzog was quietly documenting in rich Kodachrome the streets of Vancouver: its supermarkets, gas stations, bars, urban scenery and above all its working class culture. Herzog used slide film to make his photographs, which limited his ability to exhibit them and further marginalized his work; but in recent decades, happily, this color pioneer has drawn great acclaim, and this volume, the largest Herzog monograph yet published, does marvelous justice to his rich oeuvre.

    “Photography Demystified—Your Guide to Understanding Photography, Gaining Creative Control and Taking Amazing Photographs!” has been designed to resolve your frustrations and photography difficulties. This book will give you the tools, education and practical applications needed to understand how to take great pictures! PLUS, a section entirely dedicated to assignments has been included! Video tutorials are also available at no charge! http://mckaylive.com/bonus/Along with my wife Ally, I own McKay Photography Academy. Leading hundreds of photographic tours around the world, I have taught over twelve thousand people just like you how to excel in photography. Having earned my Master of Photography and Photographic Craftsmen degrees from Professional Photographers of America, the leading photography organization in the world, I have been a full time professional photographer for over twenty nine years and am passionate about teaching others how to achieve great results in their photography. My motivation is to see that everyone can enjoy photography and take the frustration out of the process!Beginning photographers, camera buffs, photo enthusiast, and many others who struggle with understanding photography concepts, exposure, and their camera manuals have already experienced my proven methods of teaching beginner’s photography. This book will do the same for you!•Terry L from Santa Cruz, CA says: “Taking someone off automatic settings to manual settings can be daunting at times. Fortunately, I have had the experience of learning from David McKay. David has taken me further into the world of photography than I could have ever imagined.”•Keith W from Austin, TX writes: “David is one of those rare individuals that combine passion, extensive knowledge and a laid-back style in teaching photography. What else can I say; it is refreshing to learn from someone this talented.” •Steve of Steve Scurich Photography in Santa Barbara,CA states: “The ability to take decades of complex photography knowledge and boil it down into concepts that are clear, understandable and easy to implement, is David’s gift to the world. Personally, I am forever grateful for the inspiration and encouragement he’s given me.”•Denise Mann from San Antonio, TX says: “David McKay is passionate about photography and equally as passionate about teaching it to those eager to learn.”•Jeff G from Sacramento CA says: “David McKay is a great photographer—not every photographer can be a great educator, David is! David is able to take complicated topics and break them down to something easy to digest and practical to implement—you are inspired to go out and use what you just learned!”•Kara from San Jose, CA writes: “You can’t help but to feel his love for photography and his passion for teaching.

    Elsken focuses on the Left Bank of Paris in the 1950s—a time when it was recognised as a centre of creative ferment which would determine the cultural agenda of a generation. With its unconventional, gritty, snapshot-like technique the work has been acclaimed as expanding the boundaries of documentary photography.

    Photographs taken over seven years across more than 35 countries document the epic displacement of the world's people at the close of the twentieth century. Wars, natural disasters, environmental degradation, explosive population growth and the widening gap between rich and poor have resulted in over one hundred million international migrants, a number that has doubled in a decade. This demographic change, unparalleled in human history, presents profound challenges to the notions of nation, community, and citizenship. The first extensive pictorial survey of the current global flux of humanity, "Migrations" follows Latin Americans entering the United States, Jews leaving the former Soviet Union, Africans traveling into Europe, Kosovars fleeing into Albania and many others. The images address suffering while revealing the dignity and courage of the subjects. With his unique vision and empathy, Salgado gives us a picture of the enormous social and political transformations now occurring in a world divided between excess and need.

    In Daido Moriyama: How I Take Photographs , he offers a unique opportunity for fans to learn about his methods, the cameras he uses, and the journeys he takes with a camera.

    PHOTOGRAPHING THE WORLD AROUND YOU, is about learning to see and about using your camera to record and interpret what you see where ever you are.

    Techniques for using simple accessories such as bounce cards and diffusers, as well as how to improve a lighting scenario by enhancing it rather than overwhelming it, show photographers how to master this challenging aspect of portraiture.

    A member of the prestigious Magnum agency since 1954, he has photographed all over the world and his images have been the subject of many books and exhibitions.Containing over 500 pictures, over half of which have never been published before, Elliott Erwitt Snaps is a unique and comprehensive survey of his work. From famous images such as Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon arguing in Moscow in 1959 and Marilyn Monroe with the cast of the movie The Misfits, to his many more personal images of places, things, people and animals, Erwitt's unmistakable, often witty, style gives us a snapshot of the famous and the ordinary, the strange and the mundane over a period of more than half a century, through the lens of one of the period's finest image-makers.The book is arranged in nine chapters, each with a one-word title: Look, Move, Play, Read, Rest, Touch, Tell, Point, Stand. For Erwitt, whose photography is a study and celebration of life, these are the basic actions of life - the things people do. The photographs are not intended to illustrate the words, but the words act as a means of grouping and organizing, making broad connections and also playing with pun and ambiguity, in keeping with the visual games Erwitt plays.