By tracing the history of manipulated photography from the earliest days of the medium to the release of Photoshop 1.0 in 1990, Mia Fineman offers a corrective to the dominant narrative of photography’s development, in which champions of photographic “purity,” such as Paul Strand, Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, get all the glory, while devotees of manipulation, including Henry Peach Robinson, Edward Steichen, and John Heartfield, are treated as conspicuous anomalies. Among the techniques discussed on these pages—abundantly illustrated with works from an international array of public and private collections—are multiple exposure, combination printing, photomontage, composite portraiture, over-painting, hand coloring, and retouching. The resulting images are as diverse in style and motivation as they are in technique. Taking her argument beyond fine art into the realms of politics, journalism, fashion, entertainment, and advertising, Fineman demonstrates that the old adage “the camera does not lie” is one of photography’s great fictions.
Award-winning Palestinian photographer Ahmad Al-Bazz presents a groundbreaking new work, The Erasure of Palestine, the result of a three-year journey documenting the remnants of hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns depopulated and destroyed from 1948 to the present. Through his lens, Al-Bazz confronts history, memory, and contemporary occupation, offering a stark counter-narrative to the dominant historical record.
With Cockaigne, Austrian photographer Gregor Sailer directs his gaze toward the largely unseen machinery of contemporary food production. Drawing inspiration from the medieval legend of the “Land of Cockaigne” — a fantasy of limitless abundance — Sailer examines the very real systems, technologies, and infrastructures that underpin how food is produced, distributed, and controlled today. The book challenges readers to rethink ideas of nourishment, consumption, and collective responsibility.
In 1998, the Good Friday Agreement was signed in Belfast, signaling peace following 30 years of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as The Troubles. Photographer Julie McCarthy photographed annually for five years on Shankill Road, a one-mile Protestant/Loyalist enclave running parallel to the Catholic/Republican area. A wall called the “Peace Wall” divides the two communities.
For the first time, Jo Spence: The Unknown Recordings brings together the full transcripts of key historic recordings made with and by the acclaimed British photographer, writer, and feminist Jo Spence (1934–1992), alongside a wealth of unpublished photographs and documents. This landmark book offers an intimate window into the life, work, and politics of one of the most influential figures in British documentary photography.
For more than thirty years, Photoworks has been at the heart of photography culture in the UK and beyond, nurturing artists, commissioning new work, and creating opportunities for people to engage deeply with the medium. Founded in 1995 from the Cross Channel Photographic Mission, Photoworks has grown into a nationally and internationally recognised charity that supports photographers and visual thinkers at every stage of their careers.
In October, when we were down in Bristol for the Foundation’s BOP event, Martin, Caroline and I got together to select the edit for this new 2026 edition of Small World.
It had become almost a tradition that with every reprint of the book we would change the cover and add in a number of new photos that Martin had rediscovered or taken recently. Over the years, Martin and I made six different editions of the book – each subtly different and each with a new cover. For this edition we added in eight new images, five taken in 2025 and three earlier images. Back in Stockport over the following weeks I adjusted the sequence to accommodate these new images, sent it over to Martin for his approval and then sent it off to EBS, our printers in Italy.
SNAP COLLECTIVE presents the first book by photographer Asako Naruto, who has received numerous international awards. Through her lens, the artist explores the contours of “what is present” while
tracing the silent echoes of “what is absent.” Divided into ten chapters, the
book gathers fragments of “untold stories” that float through the streets of
Madrid, reflecting the fleeting nature of memory and the delicate fragility of
existence.
Anna Atkins: Photographer, Naturalist, Innovator offers a clear and well-documented introduction to one of the most important yet long-overlooked figures in photographic history. Corey Keller places Atkins’s cyanotypes within their scientific, technical, and social context, showing how her work contributed to the early development of photographic publishing while navigating the constraints faced by women in the nineteenth century. Concise, carefully illustrated, and accessible to non-specialists, the book provides both visual pleasure and historical insight. It is an essential reference for readers interested in early photography, photobooks, and the intersection of science and image-making.
Archipelago, a debut photobook by Yolanda del Amo, explores the tension between the inner and exterior realities of human life. Through staged tableaus featuring friends and family, Del Amo constructs moments that expose the social frameworks shaping identity, class, family, and gender. Her photographs illustrate how closeness and separation coexist within the same space and reveal the fragile balance between connection and solitude.
