When John Major launched the UK’s National Lottery in 1994 he christened it “the people’s Lottery” and handed it to the mythical stewardship of the Everyman. But when the proceeds began to be distributed to worthy causes, including the British film industry, this populist rhetoric came under increasing strain. If Lottery funding is used to produce the type of British films which the public want to see, such as romantic comedies, then many question whether the market deserves such subsidy. Short films and low budget, experimental cinema – which often require state support – tend to go unwatched by large swathes of the Lottery ticket-buying public. This book explores the debates which were sparked by the arrival of “the people’s pictures”, and places them in historical context by examining their many precedents. Is public patronage a boon or a burden for filmmakers? And how do institutional cultures or political buzzwords affect the finished films? Case studies include the popular hits Billy Elliot (2000) and Shooting Fish (1997); art-house releases such as Love Is The Devil (1998) and Gallivant (1997); short films by Lynne Ramsey and David MacKenzie; and artists’ film and video work by Bill Viola and Tracey Emin.

Bestselling author/photographer Chris Orwig offers 30 photographic exercises to renew your passion for capturing the people in your world. This is not a traditional portrait photography book. The goal isn’t flattery, but connection and depth. Whether you are a student, busy parent, or seasoned pro photographer, these exercises provide an accessible framework for exploration and growth. With titles like: Be Quiet, Turn the Camera Around, and the Fabric of Family, each of the 30 exercises encourages you to have fun and experiment at your own pace. With step-by-step instructions and using natural light, you will explore everything from street, lifestyle, candid, and environmental shots. The projects are small artistic endeavors meant to change how you see and the pictures that you make. All that’s required is a camera, an intrepid attitude, curiosity, and some imagination.

Photography is now more popular than ever thanks to the rapid development of digital cameras. Read This If You Want to Take Great Photographs is ideal for this new wave of snapshooters using DSLR, compact system and bridge cameras. It contains no graphs, no techie diagrams and no camera-club jargon. Instead, it inspires readers through iconic images and playful copy, packed with hands-on tips. Split into five sections, the book covers composition, exposure, light, lenses and the art of seeing. Masterpieces by acclaimed photographers – including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Salgado, Fay Godwin, Nadav Kander, Daido Moriyama and Martin Parr – serve to illustrate points and encourage readers to try out new ideas. Today’s aspiring photographers want immediacy and see photography as an affordable way of expressing themselves quickly and creatively. This handbook meets their needs, teaching them how to take photographs using professional techniques.

Discusses the significance and history of printmaking and evaluates 700 prints.

A vibrant chronicle of the life and work of a prolific painter and bohemian eccentric.

This deeply personal account of emotion and vulnerability draws upon anecdotes related to individual works of art to present a chronicle of how people have shown emotion before works of art in the past.

Images flash across the screen. Photographs appear on walls, on cans, on the sides of buses, in magazines, books, newspapers, computers. We are bombarded with thousands of photographs each day: they are perhaps our major source of information, inspiration, and irritation. But what if you had to choose a single image out of that avalanche - one photograph that you couldn't stop thinking about, that changed your ideas, your aesthetics, your perception of reality? Seventy of the most interesting people of our era - both famous and unknown - were asked to choose that one image for Talking Pictures. The results are startling, profound, funny, and deeply revealing about our psychology and our times. From glossy fashion photography to devastating portraits of the Holocaust, from family snapshots to the shimmering artwork of master photographers such as Irving Penn, Andre Kertesz, and Imogen Cunningham, from Life magazine photo essays to a five-hundred-times magnification of the adhesive on a Post-it, the range of images in Talking Pictures reveals not only the strength of individual obsession and the power of history and imagination, but, more importantly, the peculiar truths about ourselves and our times that can be seen only in photographs.