In 1973, John Szarkowski, the revered director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, published his classic volume Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art, offering a sweeping and accessible history of photography and an engaging primer.

Now, American photographer and educator Stephen Frailey has borrowed Szarkowski’s concept and format for his new book, Looking at Photography. Providing 100 indelible images and a page of text for each, Frailey resumes where Szarkowski left off, updating the project to take stock of significant photographs from the early 1980s to the present. Through a meticulous discussion on each individual work, Frailey articulates the themes and emerging sensibility of contemporary photography. Artists featured in this volume include Zanele Muholi, Jeff Wall, Steven Meisel, Zoe Leonard, Helmut Newton, Daywoud Bey, Tim Walker, Collier Schorr, Katie Grannan and Peter Hujar, among many others.

Stephen Frailey is a photographer, curator, editor and educator. He served as the Chair of Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1998 to 2018, and is the co-founder of its MPS Graduate Fashion Photography Program. In 2003 he founded the Auction for Photographic Education in Afghanistan to create a photography department at Kabul University. In 2007 he established the photography magazine Dear Dave, and is its Editor in Chief. He is currently the Director of Education at Red Hook Labs.

Published by DAMIANI EDITORE, Bologna. 102 color reproductions, hardcover 204 pages. 6.75 x 8.75 inches.