Revised and expanded edition

Photography helped shape art in the late twentieth century. In the twenty-first, it has begun to dominate it. This stunning survey, now revised and expanded, presents the work of eighty of the most important artist-photographers in the world today.

Seven sections – Portrait, Landscape, Narrative, Object, Fashion, Document and City – explore the 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 certain approaches.

Each photographer’s work is accompanied by the author’s commentary and by quotations from the artist, offering invaluable insights into the making and meaning of their work.

Leading artists such as Andreas Gursky, Cindy Sherman, Sophie Calle, Nan Goldin and Martin Parr, Gregory Crewdson, Candida Höfer, Gabriel Orozco and Wolfgang Tillmans are featured alongside emerging international figures, including Viviane Sassen, Latoya Ruby Frazier and Leigh Ledare.

With an introduction that sets out the historical relationship between art and photography from the early nineteenth century, and a new final chapter that looks at the changes photography has undergone in recent years, Art Photography Now is a truly comprehensive guide to the essential aspects of contemporary photography.

Susan Bright is a curator and writer. She has contributed to many publications and is the author of Auto Focus: The Self-Portrait in Contemporary Photography, also published by Thames & Hudson. She was formerly assistant curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in London, curator at the Association of Photographers, and served as acting director for the MA Photography (Historic and Contemporary) programme at Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London.