Join thousands of book lovers
Sign up to our newsletter and receive discounts and inspiration for your next reading experience.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy.You can, at any time, unsubscribe from our newsletters.
John Alinder, son of a farmer, was born in 1878 in the village of Savasta, in Uppland, a province in eastern central Sweden. He remained in the village all his life. He chose not to take over his parents'' farm, instead becoming a self-taught photographer and jack of all trades. He was a music lover, holder of the Swedish agency for the British record label and gramophone brand His Master''s Voice. For a time he ran a shop from his home, and he even operated an illicit bar. From the 1910s to the 1930s he portrayed local people, the surrounding landscape and their way of life. His portraits are extraordinary - children placed on chairs, old ladies, people perched in trees, labourers and confirmation candidates; often depicted against a background of foliage and sprawling greenery penetrated by sunlight. The Alinder collection was ''discovered'' in the 1980s when a curator found over 8,000 glass plates stacked away in a library basement.
A remarkable photo documentary of the last matriarchal society in Europe with a strong sense of community spirit and a steadfast attachment to their ancestor's customs.
On Abortion is the first part of Laia Abril''s new long-term project, A History of Misogyny. The work was first exhibited at Les Rencontres in Arles in 2016 and awarded the Prix de la Photo Madame Figaro and the Fotopress Grant. Abril documents and conceptualises the dangers and damage caused by women''s lack of legal, safe and free access to abortion. She draws on the past to highlight the long, continuing erosion of women''s reproductive rights through to the present-day, weaving together questions of ethics and morality, to reveal a staggering series of social triggers, stigmas, and taboos around abortion that have been largely invisible until now.
This is a fully revised and updated edition of Martin Parr's highly successful book Autoportrait which was first published in 2000. Redesigned, it features a playable 'labyrinth' puzzle on the front cover and includes a large number of new images taken since its first publication. The book shows the remarkable shift from analogue to digital photography that has taken place over the period. For the last thirty years, when Martin Parr has travelled on assignment throughout the world he has had his portrait taken - whether by a local studio photographer, a street photographer, or in a photo booth. The result is a true celebration of portrait taking - ranging from elaborate studio sets reminiscent of the heyday of the Victorian studio photographer, through to digitally manipulated images of Parr as Mr Universe, or images horrendously re-touched by a studio in their attempts to flatter him. Presented in chronological order, the photos follow Parr as he ages gently on his travels across continents. As with all Parr's projects the book is not only hilarious but also comments on a world beyond the frame - not only in the apparent cultural differences between countries but also in its broader social and political references. It also reflects on identity and self, questioning the whole notion of the photographic portrait.
Unique and devastating record of animal trafficking industry. Publication coincides with the London Global Summit hosted by David Cameron.
A revised edition of the classic book that launched Martin Parr and transformed the world of documentary photography.
Why do men dream of being worshipped by people on the other side of the world? The Men Who Would Be King explores an old fantasy that still has resonance in Vanuatu in the South Pacific with the prophecy that a divine man will one day come from overseas.
Every city has a shadow. Every town has a Drake. For four years Tamara Reynolds immersed herself in the lives of the people existing just above survival on one square block in the shadows of the Drake Motel in Nashville, Tennessee.
Reclaimed concludes Paul Hart’s three-part series on The Fens in the UK. The first two books Farmed (2016) and Drained (2018) have received several international awards and considerable critical acclaim. In 2018 work from the series was awarded the inaugural Wolf Suschitzky Photography Prize (Austria/UK) and in 2019 it was shortlisted for the Hariban Award (Japan).The Fens, originally a region of low-lying marshland in the east of England, has been artificially drained over centuries to provide some of Britain’s most fertile agricultural land. It is a landscape of agribusiness with monoculture at it’s core, defined by human migration and long-term reclamation from the sea.Paul Hart has photographed the area for over ten years. His narrative examines the complex interrelation between humanity and nature and raises important questions about human-altered topography and our occupation and stewardship of this land. By focusing on the often-overlooked elements in familiar vistas Hart’s aesthetics carry a documentary sensibility that allows the landscapes to define themselves. He works solely with the analogue process employing traditional darkroom practice to convey something of the soulful in a landscape that is rarely considered of aesthetic merit.As the respected French curator and writer Isabelle Bonnet states in her insightful introductory essay; “Hart’s landscapes create a dialogue between art and document, lyricism and storytelling, the sublime and the ordinary. Almost everywhere, rectilinear and regular shapes unfold, impeccably drawn furrows responding to rows of trees, industrial constructions and metal structures… No movement animates this nature morte, no bird awakens these low and heavy skies and endless horizons… Hart’s images take on a universal value: the battered and exhausted Fens resonate like a subtle metaphor for what humanity engenders and inflicts on itself.”
Street art was once simply graffiti, a sign of decay that lowered property values. Fast forward to the transformation of LondonΓÇÖs East End and it became cool. Seen as ΓÇÿgrittyΓÇÖ and ΓÇÿedgyΓÇÖ, street art generates interest in an area. Refashioned, and made acceptable, it transforms public space as areas become high-priced, trendy and attractive to the emerging creative class. Its ΓÇÿedgeΓÇÖ and sense of ΓÇÿauthenticityΓÇÖ become a means to speed up gentrification. Yet as property prices rise, the high cost of living forces out those artists who created the art as well as the local residents. Never was this truer than in LondonΓÇÖs Shoreditch where these images are shot ΓÇô an open-air showcase of urban art that generates considerable tourism.Graffiti now appears in galleries and museums worldwide. Artists who were once hoodied, hidden and nocturnal are out in the open, working in broad daylight from cherry-picker platforms. Commissioned by corporate brands such as Adidas and Gucci they offer creative interventions into the urban landscape, images of coolness and affluence ΓÇô in murals destined to become Instagrammable propaganda. In East Ended you see every code of cool fashion and attitude, alongside scenes of poverty and people on the streets trading in anything but the cool. Gentrification has brought a numbing sameness. Yet look carefully and youΓÇÖll spot the cheeky protest posters ΓÇô political critique to climate change resistance ΓÇô purposefully plastered over and defacing the ads. The voice of the streets is reclaiming its walls.
Lust for Life is the first comprehensive overview of Ed van der Elsken's colour work. Its publication coincides with a major six month long exhibition which opens at the end of May at The Nederlands Fotomuseum, the national museum of photography in the Netherlands. The exhibition has only been possible as a result of the largest photo restoration project in Dutch history - with more than 42,000 slides of van der Esken's work now carefully restored. The book is published as a collaboration between Dewi Lewis Publishing, Lecturis and the Nederlands Fotomuseum. Design is by leading Dutch designers Kummer & Herrman.
The Way We Were 1968-1983 is a look at British society through the eyes of leading British photographer Homer Sykes - his personal view of 'life' as he encountered it as a young photographer setting out in the early years of his career.This was a time when British society was going through a period of enormous change. This is reflected by Sykes as he embraces everyday life, with a gentle and seeing eye; a knife throwing striptease tent booth at The Derby in Epsom, through to a kite-flying middle class family battling against the wind and rain on Brighton promenade. The book covers poverty in the East End, rich kids and their parents at society balls, teddy boys, factory workers in the north of England and New Romantics at the Blitz Club in Covent Garden, when Boy George was just George O'Dowd and there was still an Alternative Miss World. Skinheads hang out in upstairs bars, while Catholic youths riot in the streets of Northern Ireland. He also chronicles many of the social issues of the time and the demonstrations that brought those problems to public attention: "I attempted to get behind the more obvious news image; I was looking for other moments, that gave depth and understanding to those people's predicaments."
The Fens, a region of reclaimed marshland in eastern England, is one of the richest arable areas in the UK. It is a landscape of agribusiness that Paul Hart has been photographing for over eight years. In his new book, DRAINED, hecontinues the exploration of this wide-open environment which he began with FARMED, the first in a planned seriesof three books about the region. This is a linear landscape of straight lines and flat horizons, with monoculture atit's core. Hart's narrative pinpoints the objects that remain when all that surrounds has been cleared by modernagricultural practice. He conveys nature's vulnerability within this unsheltered, unprotected environment.Hart's working method is in the vein of documentary, exploring our relationship to the landscape by highlightingelements that are so often overlooked. He employs the analogue process and traditional darkroom techniques, toconvey something of the soulful in a landscape. As Francis Hodgson says in his insightful introductory essay: "PaulHart is a photographer interested in the slow harvesting of hidden truth from the ordinary places that most of uspass by ... (his) placid, formally peaceful landscape is pregnant with stories that lurk in the mud or the mist.
To strengthen his own political position, Albania's dictator Enver Hoxha (who ruled from 1944 to 1985), convinced his people that the outside world wished to invade their communist 'paradise'. Unable to afford advanced technological deterrents during the Cold War years, the country's communist regime built a costly and extensive network of military bunkers, allocating huge physical and economic resources in a frenzy of construction. Today the people of Albania reuse and recycle these in ways that are both extraordinary and varied: as cafés, homes, restaurants, swimming pools, barns, bridges and water tanks. Over several years Robert Hackman has photographed these strange mushroom-like structures which have now also become a popular element in Albania's burgeoning tourism industry.From 1975 to 1982 former Prime Minister of Albania, Alfred Moisiu, oversaw the fortification of the country with these defensive bunkers. In a fascinating interview he tells their story, estimating that up to 500,000 were built. As he says, 'Albania could not afford to produce aeroplanes and missiles and so we built bunkers instead.'Genti Gjikola, the former Head of Exhibitions at the Albanian National Gallery of Arts, provides an illuminating introduction. In April 2018 he became curator for the Centre for Openness and Dialogue (COD), a unique art-and-culture space at the Office of the Prime Minister of Albania. The book also includes examples of photographs taken by Algerian-born French Michel Setboun in 1981 and by Martin Parr in 1990.
Bruce Gilden has always had a fascination with what he calls characters . So, for Bruce, New York, with its famous idiosyncratic citizenry and the unique energy of its streets, proved to be a giant creative playground. Originally published in 1992 and long out of print, ''Facing New York'' has become a recognised photobook classic. For this new edition Bruce has replaced two images, of which he says that he just can t understand why they didn t make his original selection.
The Englishman and the Eel is a journey into that most London of institutions, the Eel, Pie and Mash shop. Today, these simple spaces hold within them the memories of a rich, largely undocumented cultural heritage of generations of working-class Londoners in a city whose only constant is change. Often elaborately decorated with ornate Victorian tiling, many sold live eels in metal trays that faced out onto the street to the fascination (and sometimes horror) of passersby. Inside, warmth and comfort. Steam. Tea. Laughter. Families.
For over a decade, Simon Roberts has documented events and places across Britain that have drawn people together in public, communal experiences. This has often been an implicit theme of his work, the apparent desire for common presence and participation and the need to share a sense of belonging, suggesting something distinctive about our national character and identity. Merrie Albion ranges across several of his projects from the last decade, projects that have explored not only our leisure landscape but also our social and political landscape.
Sign up to our newsletter and receive discounts and inspiration for your next reading experience.
By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy.