Today's photography arises from artistic traditions of the past. This work looks at the effects of art and its history on the creation of photographs, tracing continuities in aims, visual style, and technical experimentation. It shows how photographers such as Julia Margaret Cameron sought to elevate the status of their work by referencing Old Masters. Similarly, contemporary practitioners look to their photographic predecessors, as well as art history, for inspiration. Among the many photographers featured are Ori Gersht, Luc Delahaye, Thomas Struth, Tom Hunter, and Helen Chadwick, and paintings from Caravaggio, Zurbaran, Delacroix, Ingres, Constable, and others. Each chapter takes a genre--portraiture, the nude, still life, and landscape--and discusses the challenges that each poses for photographers. Interviews with Tina Barney, Rineke Dijkstra, Richard Billingham, Richard Learoyd, Sarah Jones, and Maisie Maud Broadhead focus in-depth on contemporary working practices. --the publisher

• Introduction: an axis between old and new
• Photography and the art of the past
• Expression and memory: portrait photographs
• The divine ideal? photographing the body
• Studies of time and beauty: still-life photography
• Wild poetry: seascapes and landscapes