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

Photography Changes Everything – Marvin Heiferman

 From Amazon: Photography Changes Everythingdrawn from the online Smithsonian Photography Initiative offers a provocative rethinking of photography’s impact on our culture and our lives. It is a reader-friendly exploration of the many ways photographs package information and values, demand and hold attention, and shape our knowledge of and experience in the world. At this transitional moment […]

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

Photography Today – Mark Durden

 From Amazon: A lively and accessible survey of photography as art since the 1960s, exploring how, in the hands of some of the world’s greatest photographic artists, it has developed into a respected and versatile artistic med

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

Photography: A Critical Introduction – Liz Wells

 From Amazon: Photography: A Critical Introduction was the first introductory textbook to examine key debates in photographic theory and place them in their social and political contexts, and is now established as one of the leading textbooks in its field. Written especially for students in higher education and for introductory college courses, this fully revised edition provides […]

Read More
February 23, 2026 - Great Text Book / Italian / Writer

Photoshow- Landmark Exhibitions –  Alessandra Mauro

  From Amazon: From photography’s earliest days, the thrill and immediacy of the new medium were defined at the first public exhibitions. Half art, half science, photography captured the attention of everyone from eager technophiles to curious painters: the art of representation was about to change. This is the first book to study the history of photography […]

Read More
February 17, 2026 - American / Photographer / Social - Street

Ralph Eugene Meatyard

Ralph Eugene Meatyard was born in 1925 in Normal, Illinois, a small college town whose name would prove ironically apt for an artist whose life’s work was devoted to exploring the uncanny spaces between the normal and the strange. He showed no particular artistic inclination as a young man, serving in the United States Navy […]

Read More
February 17, 2026 - French / Photographer / Social - Street

Raphaël Dallaporta

Raphaël Dallaporta was born in Paris in 1980 and grew up in a cultural environment that encouraged both scientific curiosity and artistic ambition. He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure Louis-Lumière, one of France’s most rigorous institutions for photographic education, where he developed the technical mastery that would become a hallmark of his practice. From […]

Read More
February 23, 2026 - Great Text Book / Writer

Recommended Reading List for MFA

The list below is mostly from the MFA course and I cant say I read all of them – many were available in the library at Ulster University and I ddi try to dig in to as many as I could – I sometimes struggled to find the balance between research and work on the […]

Read More
February 17, 2026 - British / Photographer / Social - Street

Red Saunders

Red Saunders was born in London in 1945, into the post-war atmosphere of reconstruction and political hope that would shape his lifelong commitment to radical politics and popular culture. He came of age in the 1960s, absorbing the energies of the counterculture, and established himself as a photographer working across music, theatre, and editorial commissions. […]

Read More
February 17, 2026 - Magnum / Photographer / Social - Street / Swiss

René Burri

René Burri was born in Zurich in 1933 and grew up in a Switzerland that, for all its neutrality, was surrounded by the convulsions of the Second World War. He studied at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts under Hans Finsler, a pioneer of the New Photography whose emphasis on formal rigour and clean, […]

Read More
February 17, 2026 - American / Family of Man / Fashion / Photographer / Portrait / Social - Street

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon was born on 15 May 1923 in New York City to a Jewish family with roots in the garment trade. His father, Jacob Israel Avedon, owned a clothing store on Fifth Avenue, and the young Richard grew up surrounded by fashion, fabric, and the rhythms of commerce. His mother, Anna, kept elegant photo […]

Read More

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.