Robert Frank is, and always will be, best known for The Americans, a work that’s shaped modern photography. But despite its startling originality, that book didn’t just spring up out of nowhere; it was molded by the circumstances of Frank’s life—by his childhood, by the … Keep readingRobert Frank (II)
There are photographers whose work is so influential in scope, in style, and in approach that to attempt to write anything about them is intimidating in the extreme. For me, Robert Frank is one of those photographers. His work not only changed the way modern … Keep readingRobert Frank (I)
He wanted to be a painter. How many times have I written that about a photographer? Richard Billingham wanted to be a painter—an unlikely future for a poor boy growing up in a grimy council flat in an anonymous tower complex in a bleak neighborhood … Keep readingRichard Billingham
Los Angeles. Unlike Paris or New York City or Prague, the city of Los Angeles has a reputation among photographers for being notoriously difficult to photograph. That’s because LA exists as much in myth as in reality. It lacks a single identity. LA is the … Keep readingGuillaume Zuili
He was born in 1941 in Wells, Somerset in the Southwest of England, where he was given the unfortunate name of Holroyd Anthony Ray-Jones. His father, an engraver whose work was collected by the British Museum, died when he was only eight months old, after … Keep readingTony Ray-Jones
Let me start with a confession. When I first came across Juliana Beasley’s work, I wasn’t very impressed. The photographs I first encountered were from her first book, Lapdancer, which is usually described as a gritty photographic journey into the underbelly of strip clubs. My … Keep readingJuliana Beasley
Henryk Ross was born in Warsaw in 1910. Up to a point, he lived a relatively normal life. He went to school, graduated, took a job, got married. He was lucky in many ways; he worked at a job he enjoyed (a sports and general … Keep readingHenryk Ross
Nan Goldin once referred to photography as “the diary I let people read.” That sounds somewhat self-consciously artsy, the sort of thing you’d read in the Artist Statement of somebody in their first year of an undergraduate photography program. In Goldin’s case, however, it’s pretty … Keep readingNan Goldin
Some lives are so out of the ordinary that they seem to verge on fiction. Adolfo Farsari lived such a life. He was born in the town of Vicenza in 1841, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. In 1859, when he was 22 … Keep readingAdolfo Farsari
I can’t say the photograph below was the first photo I saw by DeCarava, but it’s certainly the first of his photographs that I remember. More accurately, it’s the first of his photos that I’ve never forgotten. DeCarava had this to say about that photo: … Keep readingRoy DeCarava