Aimed at professionals and beginners alike: the first systematic attempt to find out how photographers of world stature approach their work, and what it is that makes them succeed.

This essential new guide to photography draws upon in-depth interviews with established photographers from the fields of fashion, art, portraiture, documentary photography, and advertising as well as comments from picture editors, curators, agency directors, and publishers who reveal what they look for when choosing an image.

The book first focuses on photographers' working practices, from how Mario Sorrenti got the inspiration to photograph a naked Kate Moss draped over a couch for the iconic Calvin Klein campaign to how the Dutch portrait photographer Rineke Dijkstra gets the best out of her subjects. What made the photographer start taking pictures? How did he or she develop a signature style? What is the process involved in going from concept to shoot? How important is postproduction?

Then the book turns to selection. How does the picture editor of the New York Times Magazine decide which photographer to commission for the next fashion spread? What kind of photograph, according to the Senior Curator of London's Photographers Gallery, is worthy of being hung in a gallery? What advice would art book publisher Gerhard Steidl give a budding photographer? Whether it is the question of what to look for in an image, views on cropping, or the pros and cons of color versus black and white, the shapers of taste give acute and useful accounts of their methods. 150+ illustrations in color and black and white.