THE POTOGRAPHER'S EYE

The Polaroid Corporation’s photography collection is the greatest portfolio of Polaroid images in the world. Begun by Polaroid founder Edwin Land and photographer Ansel Adams, the collection now includes some 23,000images by hundreds of photographers throughout the world, including pieces by the likes of David Hockney, Andy Warhol, and Jeanloup Sieff.

The Polaroid Book dives into these archives, paying tribute to a medium that continues to defy the digital age. Like an oversized Polaroid film pack, this collection curates works by luminaries and unknowns alike, celebrating the boundless possibilities that develop inside the white borders of the original instant photograph.

This lavish coffee-table book traces the history of photography from the first black and white images to celebrated examples of 21st-century digital photography.

Photography celebrates the most iconic photographs of the past 200 years and includes more than 50 biographies of the most famous photographers, explaining how they pushed the bounds of the medium.

- A selection of the most important "lost" cultural artefacts from ancient times to the present day
- Features images of the artworks where available, or specially commissioned illustrations of them based on written accounts
- Includes details of the ongoing debate about whether looted art should be returned to its country of origin

From some of the earliest photography, such as Nicephore Niepce's 1827 eight-hour-exposure rooftop picture and Louis Daguerre's famous 1838 street scene, through to Martin Parr, this is as much a history of the medium as a case-by-case analysis of its social, historical, and artistic impact. We take in experimental Surrealist shots of the 1920s and the gritty photorealism of the 1930s, including Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother.

We witness the power-makers (Che Guevara) and the heartbreakers (Marilyn Monroe) as well as the great gamut of human emotions and experiences to which photography bears such vivid witness: from the euphoric Kiss in Front of City Hall (1950) by Doisneau to the horror of Nick Ut's Napalm Against Civilians showing nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running naked toward the camera from South Vietnamese napalm.

Food photography is a rapidly-growing genre, and whether you're a food blogger looking to take your presentation to the next level, or a professional photographer keen to expand into this lucrative market, this book has everything you need to make it all a piece of cake.

Using the techniques she has developed through years of professional success, Beata Lubas will teach you how to anticipate your clients' needs, articulate your own style, and skillfully manufacture sumptuous shots that leap from the page.

Learn how to tell food stories using light, colour and shape to evoke atmosphere.

Discover methods for shaping natural light to produce magical images in any environment.

Sportive gentlemen, lascivious ladies: Since the earliest days of photography, people have been getting up to all manner of rannygazoo in front of the lens. This collection presents the finest highlights from the collection of New Yorker Mark Rotenberg, who began collecting antique smut after finding a stash of vintage erotic pictures in a Brooklyn dumpster and now owns a 95,000 strong collection of archive pornography dating from between 1860 and 1960.

Flick through these pages and witness the fitness of our forebears as they romp, cavort, and frolic with unabashed energy and glee. From early monochromes of daringly dropped drawers and seductively waxed handlebar mustaches, to Kodachromes of cheery, twin-peaked pin-up beauties in the 1950s, this fine collection spans the sublimely sensual and the ridiculous.

A Chronology of Photography presents a fresh perspective on the medium by taking a purely chronological approach to its history, tracing the complex links between technological innovations, social changes, and artistic interventions. Structured around a central timeline that charts the development of photography from early experiments with optics right up to the present-day explosion of digital media, it features sumptuous reproductions of key photographs, together with commentaries and contextual information about the social, political and cultural events of the period in which they were taken. Special technical sections that explain how the development of new camera technology impacted the practice of photography, while feature spreads highlight important themes and influential practitioners. Covering a wide selection of genres, styles and artists, it is invaluable as a comprehensive guide to photography in all its different forms and functions.

This is the indispensable bible of photography in the 20th century. The history of photography began over a century and a half ago, but only relatively recently has it been fully recognised as a medium in its own right. Cologne's Museum Ludwig was the first museum of contemporary art to devote a substantial section to international photography. The L. Fritz Gruber collection, from which this book is drawn, is one of the most important in Germany and one of the most representative anywhere in the world, constituting the core of the museum's holdings. This book provides a fascinating insight into the collection's rich diversity; from conceptual art to abstraction to reportage, all of the major movements and genres are represented via a vast selection of the century's most remarkable photographs. From Ansel Adams to Piet Zwart, over 850 works are presented in alphabetical order by photographer, with descriptive texts and photographers' biographical details, providing a comprehensive and indispensable overview of 20th century photography.