Sean O'Hagan on photography
In this fortnightly column, Sean O'Hagan explores photography, art, photojournalism and everything in between
'I've seen horrible things': photographer Laia Abril on her history of misogyny
Poison herbs, handcuffs on a hospital bed, death threat voicemails … the subtle but chilling exhibits in the photographer’s powerful show about abortion capture the horror of a largely invisible war on women
Negative humanity: the birth of the digital death mask
The same facial recognition technology that monitors unsuspecting Russian citizens was used to produce this eerie portrait of a Pussy Riot member
'Beyond everything': one woman's ghostly odyssey around Ireland
Dutch photographer Bertien van Manen made repeated trips to Ireland after losing her husband, and death was a shadowy presence wherever she looked
Shōji Ueda: the most beautiful, surprising photobook of the year
He was known as a ‘sedentary adventurer’, spending much of his life shooting the sand dunes right by his house. But when the Japanese master photographer died, 5,000 unseen pictures came to light. Every one is a stunning surprise
Dead or alive? Disquieting photographs to haunt your dreams
Patrick Pound’s project The Big Sleep shows pictures of people and animals in tranquil repose. Chillingly, not all of them are still with us
Self Publish, Be Happy! The DIY saviours of photography
An army of young punks are heading up a ‘zine revolution. To mark their 5th birthday, we look at their most memorable (and most saucy) photobooks – from The Afronauts to Getting to Know My Husband’s Cock
In a time before tech: the Russian sisters living defiantly off the grid
Ludmila and Alevtina live in an ancient cabin, chopping logs, picking berries and covering anything electronic with a doily. Nadia Sablin’s shots of her indomitable aunties show a way of life splendidly untouched by progress
Jeff Wall: 'I'm haunted by the idea that my photography was all a big mistake'
He provokes anger, awe and huge prices for his controversial staged scenes of hostage situations and homeless shelters. The pioneer of ‘non-photography’ talks cliches, creative freedom – and his regrets
Ghosts of the blitz: the poetry of London's world war wastelands
Inspired by their grandad who was a bomb warden, Thom and Beth Atkinson have spent six years photographing the spaces where buildings once stood. Their shots reveal London as a spectral memorial, frozen in time
Shots in the dark: Richard Learoyd and his supersized camera obscura
Using a camera obscura that’s as big as a room, the photographer creates gothic portraits with a shocking otherworldly beauty
How Hilla Becher found beauty and dignity in industrial decline
The German photographer spent a lifetime, with her husband Bernd, recording the industrial structures that once defined the western landscape. It was a devotion that inspired generations of artists
Can a photostory on the Appalachians shuck the hillbilly stereotype?
There’s a certain image of the Appalachians we all want to see, and even photographer Stacy Kranitz – who spends months living out of her car alongside the locals and goes drinking with her subjects – can’t seem to shake it
Alec Soth: America's most immaculate, intriguing photographer
Whether he’s shooting Johnny Cash’s desolate boyhood home or preacher men in prison, Soth’s images are the most sure-footed photography of a generation. Now, his first UK retrospective captures the beauty of a true American original
Crime, seen: a history of photographing atrocities
From Joseph Mengele’s skull to Gaza’s bombed-out buildings, a new exhibition presents a visual record of acts of violence in chilling detail
Survivors in Ukraine: unearthing the hidden stories of Holocaust survivors
Stephen Shore’s intimate photographs of Ukranian Jewish Holocaust survivors and the minutiae of their belongings revive a painful, largely untold history
How the world caught up with Wolfgang Tillmans
Tillmans may be criticised for photographing startlingly uninteresting moments – from weeds to watermelon stains – but in our age of image overload, we are all him now
We can never go home: an elegy for a lost Yugoslavia
Haunted by the war that tore apart her childhood, photographer and self-described ‘exile’ Dragana Jurisic has travelled through the Balkans to see what remains of her vanished country
Contact sheets: where the magic and chaos of photographs comes alive
From the D-Day landings and Tiananmen Square to Salvador Dalí’s flying-cat hijinks, contact sheets reveal the hidden secrets of unforgettable images
Keith Arnatt is proof that the art world doesn't consider photography 'real' art
The insatiably curious British photographer waged war on the art world after it rejected him. Could a fresh exhibition of his early explorations – playfully called Absence of the Artist – bring him the recognition he deserves?
A latter-day freak show? Bruce Gilden's extreme portraits are relentlessly cruel
He’s known for being in-your-face, but the legendary photographer’s new book shows people warts, wounds, acne and all. His closeups are so unforgiving and intrusive they dehumanise the subjects
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