Tom May

Tom May

Tom May is a freelance writer and editor specializing in art, photography, design and travel. He has been editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. He has also worked for a wide range of mainstream titles including The Sun, Radio Times, NME, T3, Heat, Company and Bella.

Latest articles by Tom May

A colour photograph of a weathered green child's tricycle parked on a driveway in front of a suburban house.
William Eggleston's photographs were once voted the most hated of the year – but this new retrospective proves just how wrong critics can be

By Tom May Published

News The London exhibition marks 50 years since critics called Eggleston's color photographs "banal" and "boring"

News
Square [hotos of bright red caravan and of a green Art Deco library building
How a photographer who shoots caravans and snooker clubs landed praise from Robert Plant – and an exhibition inside a heritage museum

By Tom May Published

NEWS Tom Hicks' photos of Black Country signage and shopfronts attracted unlikely support from a Led Zeppelin legend

NEWS
A man in a long coat stands alone at a street corner beside a fire hydrant, facing a row of cinema marquees advertising old films.
Baldwin Lee waited until the streets of New York had emptied of people, then took these photos with a 4x5 view camera that have sat unseen for 47 years

By Tom May Published

NEWS A new exhibition reveals how, in the 1970s, the Chinese-American photographer used a slow, tripod-bound camera to shoot the Big Apple at its quietest moments

NEWS
Kodak 35mm film slide viewer photographed on cluttered table
The best slide viewers in 2026: the easy way to rediscover your old slides

By Gavin Stoker Last updated

Buying guide Whether you wish to view old pictures or are shooting on film afresh today, these are the best slide viewers

Buying guide
A polar bear peers through a seal's breathing hole in Arctic ice, its face framed by ice, water and rising bubbles as seen from below the surface.
This haunting photo shows what a seal would see in their last moments – just before the polar bear launches a deadly attack

By Tom May Published

Award winner Meet the polar bear who found a hidden camera under Arctic ice, looked it dead in the eye, then fell asleep above it for nine hours

Award winner
Street portraits from the book Street Photography Africa
This rule-breaking book about African street photography splices catwalk-ready fashion shots in with candid documentary, and it's hard to tell where one ends and one begins

By Tom May Published

News A new release from Thames & Hudson challenges our assumptions about what street photography actually is

News
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Mital Patel spent years photographing the two remaining northern white rhinos on Earth. Yet his work isn't just about animals; it tells us a lot about humans, too

By Tom May Published

NEWS A new online exhibition teams a wildlife extinction story with a study of the people guarding it.

NEWS
Newspaper boy Ned Parfett sells copies of the Evening News telling of the Titanic maritime disaster, outside Oceanic House, the London offices of the Titanic’s owner, the White Star Line, in Cockspur Street, London, 16th April 1912. Six years later Parfett died whilst serving in France during World War I. He was killed in a German bombardment on 29th October 1918, 13 days before the end of the War. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
The most famous face of the Titanic disaster belongs to a newsboy nobody thought to name – taken by a photographer nobody credited, either

By Tom May Published

famous photos The fame of Ned Parfett's photo has outlived him by over a century

famous photos
Visa pour l'Image photography festival loses its founder: why Jean-François Leroy's passing is a huge loss to photojournalism

By Tom May Published

Obituary The man who launched the world's biggest photojournalism festival has died aged 69

Obituary
3BHBBXW MARTIN PARR in I AM MARTIN PARR (2024), directed by LEE SHULMAN. Credit: Haut et Court Doc / Album
The seaside town that once called Martin Parr's photographs a betrayal is about to put his face on a mural the size of a building

By Tom May Published

News New Brighton is raising funds for a permanent mural honouring the late street photographer

News
An older man holding a camera and a woman stand together in a grassy field under a cloudy sky with concerned expressions.
Movies featuring real-life photographers don't always hit the right notes, but new Netflix movie H for Hawk gets Fleet Street legend Alisdair Macdonald spot on

By Tom May Published

Brendan Gleeson plays the real Daily Mirror shooter, whose actual pictures anchor this Claire Foy grief drama

Photojournalism
GoPro Mission 1 Pro vs DJI Osmo Action 6 vs Insta360 Ace Pro 2
GoPro Mission 1 Pro vs DJI Osmo Action 6 vs Insta360 Ace Pro 2: Which action camera deserves your cash?

By Tom May Published

VERSUS Got action camera overwhelm? This GoPro Mission 1 Pro vs DJI Osmo Action 6 vs Insta360 Ace Pro 2 showdown should clear things up

VERSUS
A publicity still from the BBC drama Einstein and Eddington shows David Tennant as Eddington and Andy Serkis as Einstein, standing together in period suits in front of a chalkboard.
Andrew Crommelin and Charles Davidson took the photograph that proved Einstein right about the universe in 1919. So why does history only remember Arthur Eddington's name?

By Tom May Published

Features The photographer who gets the credit isn't always the one who took the decisive shot

Features
Insta360 Luna Ultra and DJI Pocket 4P gimbal cameras on a park wall
DJI Osmo Pocket 4P vs Insta360 Luna Ultra – Which twin-lens pocket gimbal camera is the best?

By Tom May, Adam Juniper Published

VERSUS How do these dual-lens, pocket gimbal cameras compare? We pit the DJI Osmo Pocket 4P vs Insta360 Luna Ultra to see which is the right choice for you

VERSUS
Seven men in hats and work clothes stand smiling together in a field, one holding up harvested beets.
These 20th century photos of Mexican workers being rounded up and sent back highlight how mass deportations from the USA are nothing new

By Tom May Published

A new exhibition traces a century of recruitment and removal, from the 1930s to the 1950s

Galleries and Exhibitions
The GoPro Mission 1 Pro with accessories
GoPro Mission 1 vs GoPro Mission 1 Pro: Which action camera is the best buy?

By Tom May, Adam Juniper Published

VERSUS Can't choose between the latest GoPros? This GoPro Mission 1 vs GoPro Mission 1 Pro comparison explains the differences

VERSUS
A photograph of rapper Tupac Shakur and Suge Knight, taken by Leonard Jefferson just minutes before the fatal shooting is displayed during the murder trial of Duane Davis, related to the 1996 killing of Shakur, at Clark County District Court at the Regional Justice Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 21, 2026. The trial of the former gang leader accused of orchestrating the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur began on August 10, 30 years after one of America's most high-profile unresolved killings. The proceedings, expected to last a month, will likely not make clear who fired the shots that killed the California hip-hop legend on the night of September 7, 1996, while he was in Las Vegas to see a Mike Tyson boxing match. (Photo by Bizuayeha TESFAYE / POOL / AFP via Getty Images)
Leonard Jefferson wasn't using a professional camera and only knew the rapper Tupac Shakur slightly, yet he captured one of the most iconic images in modern music history

By Tom May Published

NEWS The last-ever photograph of the star before he was murdered wasn't taken by a pro, but by someone who just said hello

NEWS
Two views of a cathedral interior showing tall white arches, wooden ceiling, hanging crosses, organ pipes, and rows of seating
Behind Peter Marlow's serene cathedral photographs lay months of calls to vergers, scrawled exposure notes & a stack of drying Polaroids on the dashboard

By Tom May Published

NEWS A new exhibition at London's Southwark Cathedral reveals the unglamorous planning that made Peter Marlow's celebrated large-format cathedral photographs possible

NEWS
3FCB1J2 FILE - Released prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., as he returns home from the Vietnam War, March 17, 1973. (AP Photo/Sal Veder, File)
Pulitzer-winning photographer Sal Veder has died aged 99 – his most famous frame carries a lesson for all of us

By Tom May Published

News The man behind one of the most reprinted news photos of the 20th century taught us something important about truth.

4 Comments
News
American photographer Jay Maisel attend a Rockport Photographic Workshops session, Rockport, Maine, U.S.A., 1982.
RIP Jay Maisel: the New York photographer who shot one of history's most iconic album covers, made masterful use of light and color, and loved to pass on his knowledge to others

By Tom May Published

News The photographer for Miles Davis' famed album, Kind of Blue, was a mentor to many

News
A vintage series of 12 black-and-white sequential photographs titled "The Horse in Motion" by Eadweard Muybridge, capturing the step-by-step movement of a jockey riding a galloping horse across a grid-marked backdrop.
Eadweard Muybridge invented a device that led to both cinema and burst photography – all to settle a question about horses – and the way it worked was utter genius

By Tom May Published

The 19th-century photographer's homemade 12-camera rig solved the problem of human reaction times being too slow

Photography
Triptych image: left panel shows assorted colorful flowers on dark ground, center panel features a blue leaf print, right panel has pink leaves on orange textured background
Flower photography isn't just about pretty roses: photographers in this new collection found beauty from weeds in concrete and ghosts in cyanotype

By Tom May Published

NEWS Shutter Hub's new book 'Flora' proves that flower photography still has the capacity to surprise us

NEWS
Black and white macro photograph of a nautilus shell cut in half, revealing its spiralling internal chambers in fine detail.
Getty's latest show turns the spotlight on Mexico's greatest image-makers – and how they built a century of work through friendship and rivalry

By Tom May Published

NEWS Work by 13 photographers reveals how friendship, mentorship and shared subjects shaped a country's visual history

NEWS
Black and white photograph of farm workers leaning against parked cars, holding hand-lettered picket signs reading "Viva Cesar Chavez" and "Viva La Union". (landscape)
From picket lines to drag queen dressing rooms, these five views of Los Angeles prove that Chicano photography has always refused to stay in the same lane

By Tom May Published

NEWS Five photographers, one city, and half a century of images that never settled on one way of seeing the City of Angels

NEWS
A New Zealand fur seal thrashes a rough skate above the waves as seabirds crowd in for the scraps.
Photographer paddled a kayak to the edge of the continental shelf and waited. The feeding frenzy that emerged reminds us: the best wildlife shots come from watching, not chasing

By Tom May Last updated

UPDATED A close encounter between a fur seal, its catch and a scrum of seabirds shows why patience beats pursuit

2 Comments
UPDATED
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