Photography Philosophy

Repulsive and yet strangely attractive, the gimmick is a form that can be found virtually everywhere in capitalism. It comes in many guises: a musical hook, a financial strategy, a striptease, a novel of ideas. Above all, acclaimed theorist Sianne Ngai argues, the gimmick strikes us both as working too little (a labor-saving trick) and as working too hard (a strained effort to get our attention).

A nature photographer, Theo Betz, encounters the parents of a missing young woman at the park one morning as he's going out to take pictures. Distraught but hopeful, the parents are giving out posters of their missing daughter to anyone who will take one, including Theo, who is much affected by their predicament. He promises to help in any way he can and begins a journey though the park on which he is forced to examine his feelings on the young woman's unknown fate and his own approaching death. He hopes to find the young woman to alleviate his fears and the fears of others as he ...

Jack Finney's beloved sequel to his classic, New York Times bestselling illustrated novel Time and Again. Simon Morley, whose logic-defying trip to the New York City of the 1880s in Time and Again has enchanted readers for twenty-five years, embarks on another trip across the borders of time...

Based on the BBC television series, John Berger's Ways of Seeing is a unique look at the way we view art, published as part of the Penguin on Design series in Penguin Modern Classics. 'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak.' 'But there is also another...

The divide between the digital and the real world no longer exists: we are connected all the time. How do we find out who we are within this digital era? Where do we create the space to explore our identity? How can we come together and create solidarity? The glitch is often dismissed as an error, a faulty overlaying, but, as Legacy Russell shows, liberation can be found within the fissures between gender, technology and the body that it creates. 

Jack Finney's beloved sequel to his classic, New York Times bestselling illustrated novel Time and Again. Simon Morley, whose logic-defying trip to the New York City of the 1880s in Time and Again has enchanted readers for twenty-five years, embarks on another trip across the borders of time...

Seeing with Your Own Eyes: The Zen of Photography is about discovering a different way of seeing that changes our attitude toward picture-making. Usually, we don’t question the way we see the world because we believe our way is the one and only. These essays present an alternative viewpoint. They challenge the habitual way of seeing, which gives priority to technique, subject, and outcome.

A new edition to celebrate John Berger’s centenary, selected and introduced by Teju Cole. Polemical, reflective, radically original, Berger's wide-ranging essays emphasise the continuities that underpinned more than 40 years of tireless intellectual inquiry and political engagement. To mark...

The centenary edition, with a newly commissioned introduction by Berger’s biographer, Tom Overton. 'Instant readability . . . [Berger] makes one see [paintings] as statements or questions in a living language.' New Statesman 'One of the most influential intellectuals of our time' Observer...

London is now a major centre for the international art world. The only other European city that houses as many studios is not Paris but Berlin. And Berlin does not have nearly as many galleries, public or commercial, which feature the latest developments in contemporary art.

For ten years Geordie Greig was among a very small group of friends who regularly met Lucian Freud for breakfast at Clarke’s restaurant on Kensington Church Street. Over tea and the morning papers, Freud would recount stories of his past and discuss art. It was, in effect, Freud’s private...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of How to See the World, A Pelican Book, by Nicholas Mirzoeff, read by Jonathan Keeble. In recent decades, we have witnessed an explosion in the number of visual images we encounter, as our lives have become increasingly saturated with screens. From Google...