Books published by Dewi Lewis Publishing

Giacomo Brunelli has been looking hard at animals. His focus is not on the framed and caged exotica of zoos but on the ordinary animals that remain with us to some extent: horses, dogs, cats, chickens, pigeons. He shows us a fox, looking sharply at the camera and poised to flee, and there are numerous birds, a snake and several toads, but this wildness is small and fragile, living in the familiar liminal space where manmade and natural meet and overlap. His animals inhabit farmyards, cobbled streets and the façades of stone buildings. There are no tigers here. Brunelli's animals are often composed only of suggestive fragments. His spare black and white images are attuned to the nuances of a moving mane, a silhouetted whisker, a highlighted, almost illuminated wing. He favours the profile and the counterintuitive angle, setting dark unobservable features against dark undiscernable backgrounds. A dead mouse, on its back, paws in air beside an oversized flower against a stark and distant mountain is no more or less frozen in time than is the growling dog, eyes alight and teeth forever bared; both are icons of states we fear but cannot know. These pictures are timeless and uncanny,powerful in their ordinariness, and emotionally much bigger than their simple subjects. - Alison Nordström, Curator of Photography, George Eastman House.

Over the last four years Martin Parr has been working on a commission for Multistory photographing the Black Country. It was an area he knew little of, other than its reputation as a densely populated, post-industrial area; one in decline. Many of the industries that once made the Black Country great have declined, but numerous small factories and manufacturing businesses remain in good health. A degree of regeneration has also come as a result of the many immigrant communities that have made the Black Country their home. The region is now populated with many different communities - Polish, Sikh and Somali to name but a few. Parr has explored workplaces, temples, churches, shops, clubs and societies. Wary of neglecting the day-to-day experience, he also photographed in the Merry Hill Shopping Centre, in shops such as Tesco, in bars, clubs and nightclubs as well as in leisure facilities such as gyms, sports centres and spas. One particular focus of this new series is on portraiture, an aspect of Parr's work that has really blossomed through the project.

Giacomo Brunelli uses his distinct film-noir style to create a unique and evocative view of London and its well known landmarks.

''Afghan Box Camera'' documents a living form of photography in danger of disappearing forever. Known as the kamra-e-faoree (`instant camerä), Afghanistan is one of the last places on earth where it has continued to be used by photographers as a way of making a living. Hand-made out of wood, it is a camera and darkroom in one.

Billy Monk worked as a bouncer in the notorious Catacombs club in the dock area of Cape Town,South Africa, during the 1960s. He originally began taking pictures in the club with the intention ofselling the photographs to the customers ¿ the people he was photographing. His aim was not tomake a social statement, but his money-making scheme quickly turned into something else as heincreasingly captured the raw energy of the club, its decadence and tragedy, its humanity and joy.As someone who shared the experiences of those club-goers he was trusted by them and was ableto convey their world and their experience with great energy and honesty.As David Goldblatt has written ¿These are photographs by an insider of insiders for insiders. If inhibitionswere lowered by the seemingly vast quantities of brandy and Coke that were imbibed, trust,nevertheless, is powerfully evident. Not simply in the raucous tweaking of bared breasts, or the moreguarded but evident ¿togetherness¿ of two bearded men, as well as the open flouting of peculiarlySouth African sanctions such as prohibitions on interracial sex. It is also present in the quiet composureof many of the portraits. People seemed to welcome and even bask in Monk¿s attentions.¿Monk stopped photographing at the club in 1969. Ten years later his contact sheets and negativeswere discovered and in 1982 the work was exhibited at the Market Gallery in Johannesburg. Monkcould not make the opening and two weeks later, en route to seeing the show, he became involved inan argument. A fight broke out, Monk was fatally shot in the chest and never saw his work exhibited.