Sunday Salon index

Because the World Cup…the premier sports event in the world…is now underway, I thought it would be worthwhile to examine the work of Walter Iooss, who is probably the premier sports photographer in the world. Normally we only examine one photograph (and in the future we’ll continue to focus on one photograph), but this Sunday […]

“What’s always interested me in photography is the way you can play with reality. Photography is based on reality, it looks like reality, but it’s not reality.” The interviews I’ve read with Richard Kalvar suggest he’s not a particularly articulate man. He struggles, it seems, to put his thoughts into words. That’s a shame because […]

Yousuf Karsh was a master portrait photographer. One of the old school of portraitists who created classically styled portraits that lionized the subject. His portraits were deliberately dramatic, rich in light and shadow, respectful of the subject, carefully crafted to reveal the subject’s authority and power. We don’t see much of that any more. It’s […]

In the 17th century Dutch painters began to create informal paintings that focused on the features and/or expressions of anonymous people. These were called tronies. Although a tronie showed a person’s face, it wasn’t considered to be a portrait. A portrait, in that era, was a commissioned painting that displayed an often idealized likeness of […]

“Whatever we have done,” Henri Cartier-Bresson once said (referring to himself, Robert Capa, and Brassaï), “Kertész did first.” That wasn’t entirely accurate, but it demonstrates the respect André Kertész elicited from his fellow photographers. Despite such statements, though, Kertész never felt his work was fully appreciated. He had a career that spanned seventy years, he […]

In writing these salons I’ve noticed a commonality between many of the photographers featured. Time after time there seems to be a moment, an incident, a coincidental episode that sparks some sort of transformational shift in the person. Something happens that causes the person to decide to become a photographer, to take photography seriously as […]

It’s got to be one of the most common visual tropes used by photography students in art schools: the attractive, thin, young woman posing nude in a rundown, dilapidated setting. An abandoned house, a derelict factory, a decaying former institutional structure such as a mental institution or a prison—it’s all been done. In fact, it’s […]

His real name is unknown. Kohei Yoshiyuki is a pseudonym for an ordinary commercial photographer who, for a brief period in the 1970s, documented a strange subterranean aspect of Tokyo culture. After a short interlude of notoriety, Yoshiyuki quietly disappeared from the art scene. It all came about by accident. Yoshiyuki and a companion were […]

The reaction to Les Krims’ photography has generally fallen into two categories: outrage or laughter. Or both. That’s no accident. His deeply conceptual images are intentionally crafted to spark those reactions. His work has been described as provocative, misogynistic, revolutionary, racist, absurdist, and satirical. It’s certainly some of those; it might be all of those. […]

I first heard about Isa Leshko a couple years ago, not long after she published Thrills and Chills, her first book of photography. All I knew of the photographer and the project was that she used a Holga to photograph amusement parks and carnival rides. My first response was to shudder. A toy camera? At an […]

I confess—I don’t quite know what to make of Leigh Ledare and his work. His most recent project—a series of black and white photographs of a Russian motorcycle gang, the Night Wolves—is pretty straightforward; it falls neatly into the category of social documentary photography. Prior to that, Ledare did a series of photos that grew […]

He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1923; his father was a rabbi, a Talmudic scholar of some repute. It was only natural that Saul Leiter would follow in his father’s footsteps. He found himself enrolled at the Cleveland Theological College. But he didn’t want to be a rabbi; he wanted to be a painter. […]

Laura Letinsky became a photographer partly because the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg wouldn’t let her take a class in painting until she’d completed a prerequisite course in art fundamentals. There was no prerequisite for the photography class. Letinsky began by emulating Diane Arbus. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she began by […]

Toys are, by definition, objects of play. In the hands of photographer David Levinthal, however, these objects of play play with our objectivity. He turns the innocence of toys upside down, using tiny figurines to create lurid scenes, some of which are vaguely menacing, some of which are painfully touching, some of which are horrific, […]

Helen Levitt has a reputation among art historians and critics. She’s been called "a photographer’s photographer," "one of the great living poets of urban life," and "New York’s visual poet laureate." She’s also been called, sadly but accurately, "the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time." Levitt certainly deserves to be better known. […]

You’ve probably, at some point in your life seen one of the photographs on this page. They’ve become an facet of Americana, wistful representations of a bygone era in which steam locomotives transported goods and people across the huge expanse of the North American continent. The train photographs of O. Winston Link have taken their […]

He’s best known as the author of The Call of the Wild and The Sea Wolf, novels which made him rich. He’s somewhat less well known as a journalist and social activist—though in his time he worked as a war correspondent for newspapers and magazines, and was well-known as a powerful advocate for unions and […]

There’s not a great deal known about Chinese photographer Lu Guang in the West. A few facts gleaned from a couple of interviews, a sketchy bio saying where and when he went to school, a couple of passing references to groups who’ve hired him, a list of photography prizes he’s won – that’s about it. […]

Matt Mahurin is hardly a household name, but you’re probably familiar with some of his work. You may not be aware of it, but you’ve almost certainly seen it. Mahurin created one of the most controversial images of the 1990s and sparked a debate that is still ongoing. Born in L.A. in 1959, he seemed […]

There are few things more innocent than a snow globe. These small, self-contained, cheerful worlds, in which scenery is enfolded within the purity of snow, first became popular in France in the 1800s. One result of the Industrial Revolution was that members of the merchant classes suddenly found themselves with both money and leisure time. […]