Photography

Anna Atkins, queen of cyan

It was the pioneering photogapher’s dedication to botany that made her determined to record her samples in such memorable fashion

15 Sep 2023

How Carrie Mae Weems keeps making her presence felt

Whether transforming existing images or taking photographs of her own, the socially engaged artist has never stopped experimenting

13 Jul 2023

Do photography collections in the UK need more focus?

Diane Smyth considers the state of private and public photography collections in the UK

27 Apr 2023
Mariupol maternity hospital

The changing face of war photography

The nature of modern conflicts and the demands of today’s media has led to a shift in the images produced by photojournalists

28 Apr 2022

Street cred – how Helen Levitt turned a cool eye on life in New York

The photographer recorded life in New York for 70 years without receiving the same acclaim as her male contemporaries, but that seems to be changing

22 Dec 2021
From Muddy Dance (2021) by Erik Kessels, published by RVB Books.

Up in the air – the photographs that defy the laws of gravity

What goes up inevitably must come down – but for a fleeting moment some photographers have tried to suggest otherwise

6 Nov 2021
Left: Addie Card, 12 Years Old, Spinner in cotton mill, North Pownal, Vermont (1910), Lewis Hine. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Right: Digital colourisation of Lewis Hine’s photograph of Addie Card by Marina Amaral. Photo: © Marina Amaral

Does the past look better in black and white?

Photographers and film-makers have long added colour to their images – but does the current craze for colourisation create a false impression of olden times?

11 Mar 2021
Hands on decks: Kemistry and Storm at Metalheadz (1995), Eddie Otchere

An elegy for sweaty nights of drum & bass

With nightclubs in crisis, photographs of clubbers leave Peter Scott feeling nostalgic for the ’90s rave scene

5 Mar 2021
Mass Baptism, Southend-on-Sea (detail) (2013) in ‘Thames Log’ by Chloe Dewe Mathews. © Chloe Dewe Mathews

From baptisms to boat burnings, life along the Thames is full of surprises

With an eye for ritual, the photographer Chloe Dewe Mathews celebrates an unfamiliar vision of the river

28 Jan 2021
Wrestling with Spectres (2019) from the Arrival series, Farah Al Qasimi. Courtesy of the artist and The Third Line, Dubai; © Farah Al Qasimi

Spirit of the place – an interview with Farah Al Qasimi

Conveying the views of a disgruntled jinn is just one of the artist’s absurdist approaches to understanding the modern world

16 Sep 2020
Dorothea Lange, from ‘Day Sleeper’ by Dorothea Lange and Sam Contis (detail), Library of Congress. Courtesy MACK

‘I found a Dorothea Lange who was new to me’ – an interview with Sam Contis

The artist Sam Contis talks about mining a rich seam in the personal archive of Dorothea Lange, and the parallels between Lange’s work and her own photography

21 Aug 2020
Afoor Family Bedroom, Vaalrand (1988), Santu Mofokeng. Courtesy Lunetta Bartz, MAKER, Johannesburg; © Santu Mofokeng Foundation

‘The full measure of the great artist so many suspected had always been there was becoming visible’

Joshua Chuang remembers working with Santu Mofokeng on a series of books presenting the South African photographer’s life’s work

21 Feb 2020
Collection of Michael Collins

In a Morris Minor key – Michael Collins presents the lost world of family slides

The photographer talks to Apollo about three decades of collecting other people’s family slides

18 Jul 2019
Málaga, Spain (1966), Joel Meyerowitz.

Spain’s annual photography festival, in focus

From Franco-era crimes to the Anthropocene, images at PhotoEspaña 2019 tackle some powerful subjects

26 Jun 2019
The Earth as it appeared to the Apollo 8 astronauts from the orbit of the moon on 24 December, 1968, photo: wikimedia commons

Moon landings and Martin Parr’s Britain – the year ahead in photography

Exhibitions of lunar photography and a major Martin Parr retrospective are among the highlights to watch out for in 2019

31 Dec 2018
Ara Güler (1928–2018). Courtesy Ara Güler Museum

Remembering Ara Güler, the eye of Istanbul

The much-loved Armenian-Turkish photographer spent decades recording a disappearing city

21 Nov 2018
Gary Indiana Veiled (1981), Peter Hujar.

A welcome reappraisal of Peter Hujar

An exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum makes clear the radical vision of Peter Hujar’s intimate photographs

2 Oct 2018
Portrait of Wim Wenders taken in 2015 by Peter Lindbergh, image courtesy Wim Wenders

‘It is a strange little science-fiction period in the history of photography’ – Wim Wenders on his Polaroids

The film-maker discusses the unique quality of Polaroids – and why in the future no one will see the digital photographs being taken today

13 Sep 2018
Untitled from the series Imagined States and Desires: A Balkan Journey (1999–2003).

The Barbican’s photography double bill speaks powerfully to our times

The photographs of Dorothea Lange and Vanessa Winship share a fascination with society in flux

21 Jul 2018
From the series In Search of Frankenstein by Chloe Dewe Mathews, photo: © Chloe Dewe Mathews

Chloe Dewe Mathews looks beneath the surface

The photographer’s austere images hint at natural disasters, nuclear horrors, and man-made monsters

3 May 2018
Hailstones, natural size (1897), F. Pollard. Courtesy Archive of Modern Conflict, London

A tantalising peek into the Archive of Modern Conflict

Despite its name, the London-based photography collection is far from being all about war

27 Mar 2018
Shravanabelagola, Karnataka, India 1981 (1981), Mitch Epstein.

Tracing India’s modern history through photography

This ambitious exhibition at London’s Science Museum marks 70 years of Indian independence

14 Feb 2018
The Lane Family, (2017), Martin Parr, © Martin Parr.

Posing for Martin Parr

The photographer’s foundation opens with pop-up portrait sessions and an exhibition of images of the West Midlands

9 Jan 2018
Tahrir Square, Baghdad (1962), Latif Al Ani.

Images of a vanished world

Latif Al Ani’s beautifully framed photographs provide a moving, modern picture of Iraq

7 Dec 2017