“Polaroid: The Life of the Party” (2002)

  By Nat Trotman, originally published in Afterimage, May 1, 2002 In the ongoing push for consumer ease that characterizes the history of popular photography, the Polaroid Corporation stands as the undisputed champion of the later twentieth century. Among its many successes and numerous patents–including the process of polarization from which the corporation adapted its name–the […]

A Conversation with Don McCullin

“Well, there’s no question about it, that one does become a junkie, there are war junkies and they are around today. I know individuals, personally, and I can see what they’re suffering from…”   Transcript of the BBC John Tusa Interview with Don McCullin It can’t be easy bearing the title of the world’s greatest […]

INTERVIEW: “Oral History Interview with Arthur Rothstein” (1964)

Oral history interview with Arthur Rothstein, 1964 May 25, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Interview with Arthur Rothstein Conducted by Richard Doud In New York, New York May 25, 1964 RICHARD DOUD: This is an interview with Arthur Rothstein in New York City, May 24, 1964. The interviewer is Richard K. Doud. ARTHUR ROTHSTEIN: […]

TODD HIDO: “Two Way Street”

By Doug Rickard, ASX, August 2009 Todd Hido’s new and unpublished work walks a fine line, a line that exists in the viewer rather than Todd. The work seems to come into existence through the eye’s of a smeared-single-pane-window voyeurish fog. It is the adult-white-male fog of childhood memories, and the mental hot-iron-branding of broken […]

INTERVIEW: “Oral History Interview with Gordon Parks” (1964)

Oral history interview with Gordon Parks, 1964 Dec. 30, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Interview with Gordon Parks Conducted by Richard Doud In New York December 30, 1964 RICHARD DOUD: If you would, Mr. Parks, I’d like to hear something about your background and how you became interested in photography in the first place. […]

Words by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1973)

“There is a rhyme between different elements. There is a square here, rectangle and other rectangle…see its all these problems which I’m preoccupied with. The greatest joy for me is geometry that means a structure.”   The Decisive Moment – Photographs and Words by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1973) Henri Cartier-Bresson “I’ve been taking pictures when I […]

Vaguely Stealthy Creatures: Max Kozloff on the Poetics of Street Photography (2002)

Image @ Joel Meyerowitz “Vaguely Stealthy Creatures”: Max Kozloff on the Poetics of Street Photography By Martin Patrick, Afterimage, December 22, 2002 The critic Max Kozloff frequently reminds his readers of the inherent instability of meaning within the photographic medium. In an early essay (from 1964) he considers “the aesthetic situation in photography to be […]

Paul Graham – “Photography is Easy, Photography is Difficult” (2009)

“It’s so difficult because it’s everywhere, every place, all the time, even right now. It’s the view of this pen in my hand as I write this, it’s an image of your hands holding this book, Drift your consciousness up and out of this text and see: it’s right there, across the room – there… […]

INTERVIEW: “Gil Blank with Thomas Struth” (2007)

Interview: Gil Blank with Thomas Struth Originally published in Whitewall Magazine, Volume 6, 2007 Gil Blank: I’d like to begin by asking how you perceive the nature of subjectivity within contemporary imagemaking. The concept of subjectivity, and even the word itself, is a loaded one within current artistic discourse, so I think it would be […]

Interview with Brett Weston (1991)

Brett Weston With New Car, 1978 by Martha Casanave Interview with Brett Weston by Steve Anchell, December 3, 1991 – Originally appeared in PhotoPro Magazine, 1992 He has been called a photographers’ photographer. His virtuoso work has been compared in it’s influence to that of Bach, and parallels have been drawn between his life and […]

The Social Legacy of Bill Brandt (2000)

  Let’s start with a very simple perception that Brandt is by far the greatest British photographer and I include in that even Fox Talbot. Brandt is the only British photographer who’s absolutely world class as we come to the end of photography’s span as a separate art form.   “The Social Legacy of Bill […]

An Interview with Guy Tillim (2005)

Ntokozo (right) and his brother Vusi Tshabalala at Ntokozo’s place, Milton Court, Pritchard Street, from the “Jo’Burg” series, 2004   “This is obviously not a war in the conventional sense, but in the sense of a war between the have’s and have nots, undoubtedly.”   Peter Machen speaks to Guy Tillim about his Johannesburg series, […]