Who are the makers and who are the takers? Readers can judge from themselves?

    If photography helped shape art in the twentieth century, it has begun to dominate it in the twenty-first. Not only are major international museums and galleries devoting blockbuster exhibitions to the medium, but artist-photographers are being celebrated as contemporary masters, with their work commanding unprecedented prices. This essential survey presents the work of 76 of the most important and best-loved artist-photographers in the world today, including 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 and Sam Taylor-Wood. Introductions to each thematic section-City, Portrait, Document, Object, Landscape, Fashion and Narrative-offer words from the artists and valuable insights into their motivation, inspiration and intentions. An introduction to the volume as a whole sets out the historical relationship between art and photography from the early nineteenth century forward, and covers the art world's embrace of the medium in recent decades. "Art Photography Now" is a deep and visually striking guide to the essential aspects of contemporary photography.

    Plus, insightful tips on understanding what equipment is right for you will help you get great results when working with any age group.

    In Girl Culture, she combines a photojournalists sense of story with fine-art composition and color to create an astonishing and intelligent exploration of American girls. Her photographs provide a window into the secret worlds of girls social lives and private rituals, the dressing room and locker room, as well as the iconic subcultures of the popular clique: cheerleaders, showgirls, strippers, debutantes, actresses, and models. With 100 hypnotic photographs, 20 interviews with the subjects, and an introduction by foremost historian of American girlhood Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Greenfield reveals the exhibitionist nature of modern femininity and how far it has drifted from the feminine ideologies of the past.

    I want there to be a combination of the past juxtaposed with the modern. I use nature to symbolize the search, saving a tree, watering the earth. In this fabricated world, strange clouds of smog float by; there are holes in the sky. These mythic images mirror our world, where nature is domesticated, controlled, and destroyed. Through my work I explore technology and a poetry of existence. These can be very heavy, overly didactic issues to convey in art, so I choose to portray them through a more theatrically absurd approach.--Robert ParkeHarrison

    In About Looking he explores our role as observers to reveal new layers of meaning in what we see. How do the animals we look at in zoos remind us of a relationship between man and beast all but lost in the twentieth century? What is it about looking at war photographs that doubles their already potent violence? How do the nudes of Rodin betray the threats to his authority and potency posed by clay and flesh? And how does solitude inform the art of Giacometti? In asking these and other questions, Berger quietly -- but fundamentally -- alters the vision of anyone who reads his work.

    platoon, assigned to an outpost in the Korengal Valley--an area considered one of the most dangerous Afghan postings in the war against the Taliban--but it is as much about love and male vulnerability as it is about bravery and war. Embedded with writer Sebastian Junger, and shooting over the course of one year, photographer Tim Hetherington made a series of images that prove surprisingly tender in their depiction of camaraderie and vulnerability (among the most moving is a series of the platoon sleeping). Alongside revealing interviews with Hetherington's subjects and an introduction by Junger (with whom Hetherington co-directed the award-winning film Restrepo, about the work of the battalion), the book is also illustrated with graphics of the tattoos the soldiers gave each other in the camp. The title Infidel is taken from the tattoo the men adopted as a badge of their comradeship. Warm, moving and full of humor, this book is a tribute to the "rough men ready to do violence on our behalf" and a provocative contribution to the documentation of war in our time.Tim Hetherington was born in Liverpool, U.K., and took up photojournalism after studying literature at Oxford University. Five years spent living in Liberia resulted in the book Long Story Bit By Bit: Liberia Retold (2009), and awards for his photojournalism include World Press Photo of the Year 2007 (for his dramatic war photography from Afghanistan), the Rory Peck Award for Features (2008) and an Alfred I duPont Award for excellence in broadcast journalism while on assignment with Sebastian Junger for ABC News (2009). As a filmmaker, he has worked as both a cameraman and director/producer. Restrepo won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. He is based in New York and is a contributing photographer for Vanity Fair magazine.

    Mary Warner Marien has constructed a richer and more kaleidoscopic account of the history of photography than has previously been available. Her comprehensive survey shows compellingly how photography has sharpened, if not altered forever, our perception of the world. The book was written to introduce students to photography. It does not require that students possess any technical know-how and can be taught without referring to techniques in photography. Incorporating the latest research and international uses of photography, the text surveys the history of photography in such a way that students can gauge the medium's long-term multifold developments and see the historical and intellectual contexts in which photographers lived and worked. It also provides a unique focus on contemporary photo-based work and electronic media.

    To this gifted French photographer, who died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 36, photographs were objects of wonder and mystery, even possessing a touch of the supernatural. "Photographs are not innocent." Guibert writes in one of the most provocative essays in Ghost Image, a collection of critical and autobiographical writings on photography translated for the first time into English by Robert Bononno. "They influence and...betray what is hidden beneath the skin. They weave not only lines and grids, but plots, and they cast spells....They are an impressionable material that welcomes spirits." Guibert, photography critic of La Monde for many years, himself weaves a spell with his many topics and moods, delineated in a continually unpredictable mixture of precise descriptions and poetic musing. Guibert recalls family members through the frozen reality of pictures taken at different times. He offers a compact history of the Polaroid, and informative remarks on noted travel journals resembling photography. He confesses to having betrayed an actress he photographed, and silently ponders whether certain pictures should arouse him, adding his views on the differences between visual erotica and pornography. His own occasional role as model causes ambivalence. A flurry of other incidents and thoughts - some real, others fantasy - crowd Guibert's pages as he struggles to fathom the essence of that which captures life. In an unforgettable conclusion, through his account of an enigmatic portrait and its strange fate, Guibert finally achieves the union of person and picture he sought. Ghost Image is a collection of beautifully and hauntingly written essays on what is and what lies behind any photograph.

    Today, a wave of new technology has given this photographic genre a new lease of life, from phone cameras to specialist lenses to digital zooms. The Street Photography Manual leads the reader through a series of fully illustrated tutorials, including how to shoot a face in a crowd and how to train your eye to observe and capture the unexpected. Readers will be inspired by some of the best street photographers in the world, and then go forth and create their own memorable images.

    I believe this is a function of the vector that the documentary photographer must have, to show one person's existence to another."—Sebastião SalgadoIllustrated with a compelling image from each photographer, Witness in Our Time traces the recent history of social documentary photography in the words of twenty-two of the genre's best photographers, editors, and curators, showing that the profession remains vital, innovative, and committed to social change. Featuring interviews with Hansel Mieth, Walter Rosenblum, Michelle Vignes, Wayne Miller, Peter Magubane, Matt Herron, Jill Freedman, Mary Ellen Mark, Earl Dotter, Eugene Richards, Susan Meiselas, Sebastião Salgado, Graciela Iturbide, Antonin Kratochvil, Donna Ferrato, Joseph Rodriguez, Dayanita Singh, Fazal Sheikh, Gifford Hampshire, Peter Howe, Colin Jacobson, and Ann Wilkes Tucker.Introduction: Seeing and believing / Kerry Tremain --Hansel Mieth: the depression and the early days of Life --Walter Rosenblum: Lewis Hine, Paul Strand, and the Photo League --Michelle Vignes: Magnum Photo Agency : the early years --Wayne Miller: World War II and the family of man --Peter Magubane: a black photographer in Apartheid South Africa --Matt Herron: the Civil Rights movement and the Southern documentary project --Jill Freedman: Resurrection City --Mary Ellen Mark: streetwise photographer --Earl Dotter: the United Mine Workers --Eugene Richards: Americans we --Susan Meiselas: Central America and human rights --Sebastião Salgado: workers --Graciela Iturbide: the indigenous of Mexico --Antonin Kratochvil: the fall of the Iron Curtain --Donna Ferrato: living with the enemy : domestic violence --Joseph Rodriguez: in the barrio --Dayanita Singh: a truer India --Fazal Sheikh: portrait of a refugee --Gifford Hampshire: the Environmental Protection Agency's Project DOCUMERICA --Peter Howe: Life magazine and Outtakes --Colin Jacobson: Independent magazine and Reportage --Anne Wilkes Tucker: the museum context --Fred Ritchin: the fish are last to know about the water: the emerging digital revolution --Rondal Partridge: Dorothea Lange in the field --Don McCullin: Vietnam : the Battle of Hue, 1968 --Bill Owens: Suburbia and a passion for seeing his world --Larry Fink: Social graces --David Goldblatt: once an enemy : Apartheid and the New South Africa --Maya Goded: Tierra Negra --Afterword: Witness in our time / Ken Light

    Less gear. Less anxiety. Less stress. Less fear. A Lesser Photographer is the missing guide you've always wanted to the only gear that really matters: the gear between your ears. In under an hour, you’ll be able to identify the myths you’ve been taught about photography and embrace useful creative habits that will set you apart. Praise for previous editions: “For something beautiful and well-said, check out A Lesser Photographer.” — David duChemin “Amazing read…I really recommend everyone get a copy.” — Chris Marquardt “CJ Chilvers reevaluates what it means to be a photographer in this manifesto. Most of the points apply to virtually any creative endeavor or obsession. ‘The real show is outside the viewfinder.’” — Jim Coudal “I have to say, CJ has a great attitude. If you care at all about photography, he’s a must read.” — Patrick Rhone “Every photographer should follow CJ Chilvers.” — Eric Kim

    This revised and expanded edition contains a new introduction by Lester Brown, founder and president ofthe Earth Policy Institute, new text and captions by environmental experts, and, best of all, an additional 17 photographs.

    She is best known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take pictures of Soviet industry, the first female war correspondent (and the first woman permitted to work in combat zones) and the first female photographer for Henry Luce's Life magazine, where her photograph appeared on the first cover. She died of Parkinson's disease about eighteen years after she developed her first symptoms.

    He made pilgrimages to true time capsules like a remote lagoon in Western Australia, spent time in research collections photographing forms of microscopic life, and even found ways to create visual parallels between the growth of organs in the human body and the patterns seen on the surface of the earth. The resulting volume is a glorious picture book of planet earth depicting the amazing biodiversity that surrounds us all. Lanting's true gift lies beyond his technical mastery: it is his eye for geometry in the beautiful chaos of nature that allows him to show us the world as it has never been seen before. From crabs to jellyfish, diatoms to vast geological formations, jungles to flowers, monkeys to human embryos, LIFE is a testament to the magical beauty of life in all its forms and is Lanting's most remarkable achievement to date. The photographer: Dutch-born Frans Lanting has been hailed as one of the great nature photographers of our time. For the past two decades he has documented wildlife and our relationship with nature in environments from the Amazon to Antarctica. Exhibits of his photographs have been shown at major museums in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Lanting's previous TASCHEN titles include Eye to Eye, Jungles, and Penguin. The editor: Christine Eckstrom is a writer and editor specializing in natural history. She collaborates with Lanting on fieldwork, books, and other publishing projects from their home base in California.