Books
Photography Decoded
(Tate/Ilex, 2019; co-authored with Hedy van Erp)Drawing from fifteen years of teaching experience, Photography Decoded makes complex photographic concepts accessible to a broad audience. The book uses multiple interpretative approaches to introduce readers to challenging images and critical debates in photography.
Organized into ten chapters, the book examines enduring photographic issues including realism, privacy, and editing. Each photograph is explored through guided questions and detailed analysis, considering the history, distribution, and context of diverse photographic works.
Beyond developing visual literacy skills, Photography Decoded demonstrates that the very definition of what constitutes a photograph is more contested today than ever before.
Design: She Was Only
Feast for the Eyes: The Story of Food in Photography
(Aperture, 2017)Feast for the Eyes surveys the rich history of how food has been photographed in the histories of photography, revealing that images of food are rarely just about food itself.
The photographers featured in this book demonstrate that photographs of food—like food itself—evokes profound questions and anxieties about consumption, aspiration, tradition, gender, race, desire, wealth, poverty, pleasure, revulsion, and domesticity.
Feast for the Eyes was shortlisted for the Historical Book Award at Les Prix du Livre, Arles 2018.
For an inside look, click here
Editor Denise Wolff on Feast for the Eyes (video)
Home Truths: Photography and Motherhood
(Art / Books, 2013)Published to accompany the exhibition at The Photographers' Gallery and The Foundling Museum in London, Home Truths examines how contemporary artists interpret the figure of the mother.
Featuring work by twelve international artists, the publication challenges stereotypical and sentimental views of motherhood perpetuated by traditional narratives. It explores how artists address evolving concepts of power, gender, domesticity, the maternal body, and female identity.
The featured works are deeply personal, often taking a documentary approach that places individual subjects at the center of each narrative. The book also includes art historical and autobiographical essays by Susan Bright, Nick Johnson, Simon Watney, and Stephanie Chapman.
Interviews with the artists (videos)
Auto Focus: The Self Portrait in Contemporary Photography
(Thames & Hudson, 2010)Written on the brink of the selfie phenomenon, Auto Focus was among the first comprehensive surveys to examine self-portraiture in contemporary photography. The book aimed to be as international as possible, featuring a diverse range of photographers and artists.
The book demonstrates how questions of identity—whether national, sexual, racial, personal, or artistic—are central to understanding the work of many contemporary photographers. Organized into five chapters (Autobiography, Body, Masquerade, Studio and Album, and Performance), the book explores how the self becomes a vehicle for self-regard, self-preservation, self-revelation, and self-creation. ,
Other editions include: Monacelli Press (USA) and Contrasto (Italy)
How We Are: Photographing Britain
(Tate, 2007: co-authored with Val Williams)Published to accompany the How We Are exhibition at Tate Britain, this book follows the exhibition's chronological structure while examining overlapping themes and preoccupations in greater detail.
The publication explores several distinctive characteristics of British photography: a melancholic nostalgia and tendency to ‘hark back’ to the past, a deep appreciation for the ordinary and everyday, and an ongoing desire to capture the fluid and elusive concept of Britishness itself.
The book demonstrates how the act of photographing Britain in its many forms has played a crucial role in shaping the nation's complex, multi-faceted identity.
TateShots (video)
Face of Fashion
(National Portrait Gallery, 2007)Published to accompany the exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery, Face of Fashion was released in multiple editions.
The publication allowed for deeper exploration of the photographs' contexts, examining the relationships between fashion and art, celebrity culture, and collaborative practices in both editorial and advertising photography.
Featuring all works from the exhibition, the book also included an additional essay by American cultural commentator Vince Aletti.
Other editions include: Aperture (USA)
Design: Thomas Manss & Company
Art Photography Now
(Thames & Hudson, 2005; 2nd edition, 2011)
Art Photography Now was one of the first overviews of contemporary art photography and provides an extensive overview of eighty international artists who use photography as their primary medium. The book is divided into seven sections - Portrait, Landscape, Narrative, Object, Fashion, Document, and City - that explore the diverse subjects, styles, and methods of the leading practitioners. Introductions to each section outline the genres and consider why photographers are attracted to certain themes, and how issues like memory, time, objectivity, politics, identity, and the everyday are tied to their approaches.
Other editions include: Aperture (USA), Textual (France), Edition Braus (Germany), Nerea (Spain), Korea Price Information Corp (Korea), IDEAFried (Taiwan), Post Wave Publishing Consulting Ltd (China)