February 23, 2026 - German / Great Text Book / Writer

How You Look At It- Photography of the 20th Century – Thomas Weski

From Amazon: This collection explores the various ways in which photography shaped our view of the 20th century, at the same time providing a record of the radical changes undergone by our towns, landscapes and private lives. Carefully juxtaposed with photographs the are paintings and sculptures.

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February 23, 2026 - British / Great Text Book / Writer

Fifty Key Writers on Photography – Mark Durden

 From Amazon: A clear and concise survey of some of the most significant writers on photography who have played a major part in defining and influencing our understanding of the medium. It provides a succinct overview of writing on photography from a diverse range of disciplines and perspectives and examines the shifting perception of the medium […]

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February 23, 2026 - American / Great Text Book / Writer

Between the Eyes – David Levi Strauss

 From Amazon: David Levi Strauss is a writer whose visual and intellectual sensibilities are both acute and expansive. His trenchant writings on photography and photographers have been collected for this volume from a broad range of magazines, including Aperture, Artforum and The Nation. In Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and Politics, Strauss tackles subjects as diverse […]

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February 23, 2026 - American / Great Text Book / Writer

Art Photography Now – Susan Bright

  From Amazon: This revised and expanded edition of Art Photography Now builds on the hugely successful first edition (2005), which traced the developments in art photography since the mid-nineteenth century and profiled world-famous artists such as Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin and Martin Parr. The book retains its seven themed sections – Portrait, Landscape, Narrative, […]

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February 22, 2026 - American / Great Text Book / Writer

PHOTOGRAPHY A Very Short Introduction – Steven Edwards

Review by Amazon Photography: A Very Short Introduction examines the definition, importance, and meaning of photography by combining a sense of the historical development of photography with an analysis of its purpose and meaning within a wider cultural context. Photographs are everywhere, in print and online. They are an integral part of our daily lives […]

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February 20, 2026 - American / Photographer / Portrait / Reflexivity, Home & Family

Tina Barney

Tina Barney was born in 1945 into the rarefied world of New York’s social elite. She grew up on the Upper East Side and spent summers in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, and Sun Valley, Idaho. She came to photography relatively late, studying at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in the mid-1970s and then […]

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February 19, 2026 - British / Photographer / Social - Street

Ken Grant

Ken Grant was born in 1967 in Liverpool, the son of a carpenter. He bought his first camera — a Polaroid — at the age of twelve and worked as a carpenter himself before studying photography under Martin Parr and Paul Graham at West Surrey College of Art and Design. Over the past three decades, […]

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February 18, 2026 - British / Great Text Book / Writer

The Pleasures of Good Photographs – Gerry Badger

  Review by Aperture:   The Pleasures of Good Photographs is an intellectual and aesthetic excursion led by Gerry Badger, one of the field’s eminent critics and popular writers and the author of more than a dozen books including both volumes of The Photobook: A History. In this new volume of essays, Badger offers insight into some […]

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February 17, 2026 - American / Landscape - Cityscape / Photographer / Social - Street

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier is the most remarkable photographic discovery of the twenty-first century. Born in New York City in 1926 to a French mother and an Austrian father, she spent significant portions of her childhood in the village of Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur in the French Alps, where her mother had family connections. This Franco-American upbringing gave her a […]

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February 17, 2026 - American / Magnum / Photographer / War - Conflict

Steve McCurry

Steve McCurry was born in 1950 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in the suburbs of the city. He studied film and history at Pennsylvania State University, where he also began working for the student newspaper and discovered a passion for visual storytelling. After graduating, he worked briefly at a newspaper before deciding to pursue […]

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RESOURCES

This is where I keep the research — over 200 studies of the photographers, writers, curators and exhibitions I’ve found most compelling. Each entry offers a summary of their practice together with a few examples of their work, where copyright permits.

FOCUS


Browse by genre (use the hamburger menu above on mobile) — Street, Fashion, Landscape, Documentary and others. Most of these categories took shape during my MFA studies and many of the people here appear in multiple categories.

NATIONALITIES

View landmark exhibitions like New Topographics and The Family of Man alongside individual studies of Magnum photographers and many others, like the "Terrible Three", who have shaped the way we see.