Eight years after his death, the critic, novelist, and storyteller who changed how we look at art remains the most generous — and the most radical — writer England ever produced. By Bergotte There is a moment in the first episode of Ways of Seeing — the 1972 BBC television series that made John Berger,Continue reading “Ways of Being Seen: John Berger and the Art of Paying Attention”
Category Archives: Photography
The Wound and the Camera: Susan Sontag and the Unfinished Project of Seeing
Twenty years after her death, the great critic’s ideas about images, suffering, and the moral life feel less like history than like prophecy. By Bergotte There is a photograph that Susan Sontag never saw — or rather, she could not have seen it in the form we now encounter it, scrolling past it on aContinue reading “The Wound and the Camera: Susan Sontag and the Unfinished Project of Seeing”
Steven Meisel: The Eye of Fashion’s Modern Age
In fashion, there are names that decorate the mastheads and those that define eras. Steven Meisel belongs firmly to the latter category. For more than four decades, his lens has not only chronicled fashion but authored its mythology. His images—precise, provocative, and relentlessly transformative—have made him both a magician of surfaces and an architect ofContinue reading “Steven Meisel: The Eye of Fashion’s Modern Age”
The Two Alfreds: Eisenstaedt and Wertheimer
In the vast history of twentieth-century photography, two Alfreds stand out for the way they captured the essence of their time: Alfred Eisenstaedt, the German-born émigré whose elegant eye helped define Life magazine’s golden era, and Alfred Wertheimer, the Brooklyn-based photographer whose intimate portraits of a young Elvis Presley gave the world its first candidContinue reading “The Two Alfreds: Eisenstaedt and Wertheimer”
Man Ray: The Alchemist of the Lens
No artist embodied the restless experimentation of the twentieth century quite like Man Ray (1890–1976). Painter, photographer, filmmaker, and Surrealist provocateur, he refused categories, moving fluidly between avant-garde circles in New York, Paris, and Hollywood. His work transformed the camera from a tool of documentation into an instrument of imagination — a device capable ofContinue reading “Man Ray: The Alchemist of the Lens”
Martin Parr, photographer who transformed the everyday into cultural testimony, dies aged 73
Martin Parr, the British photographer whose saturated colours, wry humour and unflinching eye reshaped documentary photography, has died aged 73 at his home in Bristol on 6 December 2025. Born in Epsom, Surrey, in 1952, Parr’s interest in photography was encouraged early by his grandfather, himself a keen amateur. He studied at Manchester Polytechnic inContinue reading “Martin Parr, photographer who transformed the everyday into cultural testimony, dies aged 73”
Slim Aarons: The Man Who Photographed the Good Life
“Attractive people doing attractive things in attractive places.” Slim Aarons’ pithy description of his own work became both motto and myth. For decades, he chronicled the leisure class — sun-dappled heiresses in Palm Beach, bronzed movie stars in Palm Springs, aristocrats lounging on the Côte d’Azur. His images became shorthand for mid-century glamour: candid yetContinue reading “Slim Aarons: The Man Who Photographed the Good Life”
Diane Arbus: The Mirror and the Mask
Few photographers have unsettled the boundaries of art, beauty, and truth as profoundly as Diane Arbus. Born in New York in 1923 into the Russek fur dynasty, she seemed destined for a life of privilege, yet she turned her lens away from society’s glittering surfaces. Instead, she sought out what others averted their gaze from:Continue reading “Diane Arbus: The Mirror and the Mask”
Lee Miller at War: The Camera as Witness
When Lee Miller picked up her Rolleiflex and walked into the ruins of Europe, she left behind the world of glossy magazine covers and Surrealist salons. Her photographs of World War II — published in Vogue between 1940 and 1945 — transformed her from a society beauty into one of the most unflinching photojournalists ofContinue reading “Lee Miller at War: The Camera as Witness”
Lee Miller: Beauty, War, and the Alchemy of Reinvention
Lee Miller (1907–1977) lived many lives, each more improbable than the last. She was first a fashion model of startling beauty, then a Surrealist muse in Paris, then a groundbreaking war photographer who witnessed some of the darkest scenes of the twentieth century. By the end of her life, she had retreated into the quietContinue reading “Lee Miller: Beauty, War, and the Alchemy of Reinvention”
My World of Interiors 