Grainy glory: how Keizo Kitajima tore up the Japanese photobook
Photo Express: Tokyo breaks with Japanese photobook tradition by being less of an art object and more of a collection of raw, confrontational images that capture the buzz of Tokyo at nightThe Japanese photobook is often an art object in itself, merging...
This Must Be the Place by Pieter Hugo – review
Pieter Hugo's photographic retrospective offers a provocative view of life on the edge of sub-Saharan African societyPieter Hugo's photographs are problematic. That is part of their power and their resonance. He is a white South African who came of age...
Tim Lott: ‘I always sought my older brother’s approval’
Tim Lott's new novel about sibling rivalry reveals traces of the fraught relationship he has with his own brotherTim Lott's new novel, Under the Same Stars, began life as a memoir of an actual road trip he took with his older brother, Jeff, across...
Les amies de Place Blanche by Christer Strömholm – review
Christer Strömholm's compelling portraits of transsexuals in 50s Paris capture his subjects' pride and camaraderieChrister Strömholm, who died in 2002, is known as the father of Swedish photography both for his abiding influence and for his role as a...
In the Picture by Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander's clever use of reflections and shadows plays a prominent part in this collection of self-portraits spanning half a centuryLee Friedlander first came to public attention in 1967 when his work appeared in the New Documents exhibition at ...
Claire de Rouen obituary
Claire de Rouen, the founder and proprietor of the independent fashion and photography bookshop of the same name, has died after a long illness. Claire was something of a Soho icon to fashion students and photography buffs, and her tiny shop on the fir...
Kelly Macdonald: ‘I’m so not a celebrity’
TV gangster drama Boardwalk Empire has finally made a star of Kelly Macdonald. As she prepares for a new series, the Scottish actress talks about working with Scorsese and why the whole celeb thing is 'a wee bit silly'Until recently, Kelly Macdonald w...
The Doors by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus's essay on the Doors and their music is as passionate and rewarding as you might expect – if you can ride out the stormier flights of fancyFor me, the most succinct and illuminating portrait of the Doors is still Joan Didion's masterful ...
Photography books of the year 2011: a snapshot of Christmas gift ideas
From the Ruins of Detroit to the New York subway, via Elin Høyland's touching portrait of two brothers and Pieter Hugo's haunting images of Rwanda, Sean O'Hagan looks back at his favourite photobooks of 2011It's that time of the year again and, in no ...
Christian Patterson goes on the trail of America’s natural born killers
The Brooklyn photographer's latest book, Redheaded Peckerwood, is strange and beautiful despite its subject – an epic killing spree that has haunted America since 1958In January 1958, Charles Starkweather, a 20 year-old from Lincoln in Nebraska, and ...
Pieter Hugo photographs the lingering legacy of the Rwanda genocide
The still-visible aftermath of the 1994 atrocities forms the focus of one of Hugo's projects, in which he challenges the camera's power to portray things as they really areA few weeks ago, Pieter Hugo won the Seydo Keita award, the most prestigious pri...
The art of war photography
A pair of new photobooks explore soldiers' use of cameras in conflicts from the Vietnam war to the Northern Irish TroublesThere is a passage in Despatches, Michael Herr's viscerally powerful memoir of his time as a war correspondent in Vietnam in the l...
