More stories

  • in

    Images of a vanished world

    In 1962, Latif Al Ani, two years into his stint as lead photographer for Iraq’s Ministry of Information and Guidance, turned his camera to a familiar subject: Jewad Selim’s majestic Monument of Freedom, which spans Baghdad’s central Tahrir Square. Just a short walk from the Tigris river, Selim’s 50-metre-wide bas-relief had been completed in 1959, […] More

  • in

    Martin Parr gets an all-access pass to Oxford

    Between 2014 and 2016 the documentary photographer Martin Parr turned his wry gaze to the University of Oxford. The resulting exhibition and book present a photographic portrait of the university today; laying bare its hidden stories and eccentricities. Speaking at the launch of ‘Martin Parr: Oxford’ in the Bodleian Weston Library, the artist expanded on […] More

  • in

    What not to miss at the world’s leading photography festival

    There are few better places to be than Provence in July. The sunflowers are in bloom, the region’s cherries are in season, the Tour de France passes through, and there are a number of arts festivals: performing arts in Avignon, classical music in Aix-en-Provence – and world-class photography in Arles. Founded in 1969 by Lucien […] More

  • in

    Irving Penn’s radical formalism

    Bringing together over 300 images, the Irving Penn centennial exhibition at the Met offers a dizzying run through the long arc of Penn’s career. The photographs include Penn’s earliest quasi-touristic photos of various signs and street scenes; vibrant still lives; his fashion photographs from the 1940s through the 1990s; endless portraits (the most notable of […] More

  • in

    Do UK museums take photography seriously?

    This spring, the collection of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS) was transferred from the National Media Museum in Bradford to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. When news of the move was announced in 2016, there was a good deal of criticism, including a letter to the Guardian signed by a long list of […] More

  • in

    One photographer’s spiritual struggle in Jerusalem

    In 1853, the archaeologist and photographer Auguste Salzmann travelled to Jerusalem to photograph the city’s religious monuments. The resulting photographs were published in 1856 as the album Jerusalem: A study and photographic Reproduction of the Monuments of the Holy City. Forty-two of them are currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum as part of the […] More

  • in

    ‘If I could describe a photograph entirely in words, why bother making it?’

    For most of her career, Dayanita Singh has placed programmatic disobedience at the core of her approach to photography, challenging the formal qualities of images as well as the way they are exhibited. Amandas Ong speaks to her ahead of her show opening at Frith Street Gallery, London. Installation view, ‘Dayanita Singh: Museum of Shedding’, […] More