From the Archive

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How Alex Webb Sees in Color

Since the 1970s, Webb has distilled gesture, light, and color into layered compositions. In this excerpt from his newly reprinted volume “The Suffering of Light,” the photographer reflects on his travels, shooting in color, and creating a “chronicle of the street.”

Summertime in America’s Backyard

In 1979, Stephen A. Scheer photographed a riverside community in Connecticut, showing residents reunited with natural surroundings.

For Bertien van Manen, Photography Was All About the Heart

In her unvarnished portraits of strangers and family, the late photographer extolled the beauty and mysteries of everyday life.

Paolo Gasparini on How Photographs Can Help Us Learn to See

Gasparini spent his life documenting cities and people from Havana to Caracas. In a 2015 interview, he spoke about what it means to identify as a Latin American photographer.

An-My Lê on Vietnam, the Chaos of War, and the Tangibility of Memory

For the past two decades, An-My Lê has used photography to examine her personal history and the legacies of US military power, probing the tension between experience and storytelling.

Sofia Coppola on the Photographs that Inspired Her Films

The acclaimed director reflects on the ways photography has been central in shaping her distinct cinematic language.

Finding Euphoria and Community in Rave Culture

On the road with Vinca Petersen, who chronicled the raves, free parties, and traveling sound systems of ’90s-era Europe.

A Literary Publisher’s Bold and Original Photographic Covers

New Directions covers from the mid-twentieth century are easy to spot but difficult to describe, often using pictures to describe words rather than the other way around.

Hervé Guibert’s Passionately Restrained Photographs

Wildly prolific, the late French writer was driven, compulsive, and rarely satisfied—and his own little-known photographs remain as elusive as ever.
A black and white photograph of a shirtless man holding a copy of the novel A Little Life over his face

Why Are We Seeing So Many Photographs on Book Covers?

From Olivia Laing to Hanya Yanagihara, writers have used images in clever ways on their book jacket designs. What are they trying to tell readers?

The Cairo Photographer Whose Studio Became a Dream Machine

Beginning in the late 1930s, Van Leo made hundreds of dazzling and uncanny self-portraits. What does his archive tell us about the mysteries of identity?

Nan Goldin Reflects on Art, Addiction, and Activism

Throughout her career, Goldin photographed her friends, her lovers, and the family she made for herself. Her work constitutes an autobiography in several volumes, her life as an episodic tale.

Wolfgang Tillmans on Photography and Spirituality

The guest editor of Aperture’s “Spirituality” issue, Tillmans speaks about contemporary image culture, the anxieties of time, and how photography might foster respect for the world.

How a Generation of Women Artists Broke New Ground in Abstract Photography

Women have made some of the most radical accomplishments in nonconventional image making. Can working against the grain be an act of defiance?

Boris Mikhailov on Liberation, Vulgarity, and Chance in Photography

Throughout his career, the irreverent Ukrainian photographer has flirted with conceptual and documentary traditions to subvert Soviet-era visual codes.

An Artist’s Book Grapples with the Consequences of the US Prison System

Sable Elyse Smith’s “Landscapes & Playgrounds” includes aerial photographs and handwritten letters, portraying the intimacy between an incarcerated father and a daughter.

A Photographer’s Canny Investigation of American Privilege

Buck Ellison creates deliberately artificial depictions of wealth and aspiration, crafted with the precision of commercial shoots.

Lucy Raven’s Sonic Journeys Near and Far

For the New York–based artist—whose practice incorporates photography, video, sound, installation, and performance—the research becomes the work itself.
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Aperture No. 257

Aperture presents “Image Worlds to Come: Photography & AI,” a timely and urgent issue that explores how artificial intelligence is quickly transforming the field of photography and our broader culture of images.