Contemporary Photography
About
A general category for photography from the 1970s onward. Over the past few decades, the medium has been defined by new technologies and formats, among the most important being color photography, digital manipulation, and large-scale printing techniques. Contemporary photographers often use these developments to present new perspectives on traditional subjects and compositions. The New Topographics documented expansive, deadpan views of nature, while, more recently, Alec Soth and Taryn Simon have captured portraits of subjects from the fringes of society. There is also a recurring blurring of the division between documentary and fiction, inspired by the elaborate staging of images by photographers such as Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, and Gregory Crewdson.
