Photography

Rick Poynor|Essays

The Experiential Thrill of Driving in Films

A new book, Drive, shows how the car scenes in movies help us understand the experience of modernity.

Rick Poynor|Essays

On My Screen: Shooting the Past

Stephen Poliakoff’s Shooting the Past, set in a fictitious photo library, is a film that could haunt you for years.

Rob Walker|Essays

13 Striking Landscape Fictions

Thirteen “landscape fictions,” photographs of the natural world — made distinctly unnatural.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Herbert Spencer and the Decisive Detail

In Herbert Spencer’s most memorable photographs, signs of official communication fray into visual poetry.

Alexandra Lange|Essays

3rd Annual Holiday Card Review

Holiday card designs for 2012 reveal the social media preoccupations of their buyers, whether it is Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram or old-fashioned (perhaps Downton Abbey-inspired?) stationery.

Rick Poynor|Essays

Robert Brownjohn: Photos at Street Level

The Victoria and Albert Museum has put 18 of Robert Brownjohn’s photographs on display for the first time.

Rob Walker|Essays

System As Photographer

System as photographer, and photographer as system.

Alexandra Lange|Essays

Having Fun at the Museum

Blocks, rocket ships, playgrounds and balls: the hidden meaning of playthings at the Museum of Modern Art.

Rick Poynor|Photos

Demonstrations, Democracy and Design

After demonstrations in 2011, Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya became a carnivalesque village of protest.

Alexandra Lange|Essays

Someone Else’s Shangri La

An exhibition of Doris Duke's Honolulu mansion, Shangri La, proves a “Spanish-Moorish-Persian-Indian complex” works as theater.

Rick Poynor|Essays

John Stezaker: Images from a Lost World

John Stezaker’s collages, recipients of a major photography prize, achieve great resonance with limited means.

Rick Poynor|Essays

It’s Smart to Use a Crash Test Dummy

The image of the crash test dummy has traveled from the subcultural fringes to the pop culture mainstream.