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 large sign reading "I am an American" hangs in the window of a shuttered Oakland grocery store the day after Pearl Harbor, as a 1940s car sits in the foreground.
From the Great Depression to Japanese-American internment, Dorothea Lange's camera bore witness to some of the darkest moments in US history

By Tom May Published

NEWS A forthcoming retrospective celebrates one of the most morally urgent photographers of the 20th century

NEWS
Charli xcx leans back against a pale wall wearing a white crop top and dark jeans, her dark curly hair caught mid-movement, her gaze directed downward; photographed by Harley Weir, 2024.
This Charli XCX portrait by Harley Weir refuses to be a typical pop star photo, and that's precisely why it now belongs in London's National Portrait Gallery

By Tom May Published

News It captures one of Britain's most culturally significant musicians in a moment that feels unusually intimate

News
A wheelchair user in a pink sweatshirt holds a sign reading "How about us?" beside a red London Leyland bus, as bystanders look on from the pavement.
The photographer who documented Britain's disability rights movement from the inside has finally been recognized, and his archive is free to use

By Tom May Published

News Keith Armstrong spent decades capturing protests that changed British law forever

News
Black and white photograph of children playing on a rope swing wedged between two brick walls, with two more boys crouched nearby covering their faces, taken in Byker, Tyneside, in 1976.
Chris Killip spent months living in deindustrialised communities in North-East England, photographing some of the most intimate images of 1970s and '80s Britain – using a huge camera that was never built for the job

By Tom May Published

News A new edition of his book North reveals how the wrong tool for candid photography became his greatest asset.

News
Two men in long coats and boots pull a large metal tub across a grassy hillside to transport a sick ram, while several other sheep watch from the background.
James Ravilious and Chris Chapman spent 50 years photographing farms, weddings and village halls in the same corner of rural England – yet neither ever saw the other as competition

By Tom May Published

Their work highlights how great documentary photography comes from patience, trust and staying in one place

Galleries and Exhibitions
Black and white photograph of a woman pushing a pram along a bleak industrial road, with factory chimneys smoking in the background.
This new gothic-themed exhibition has a lot to teach photographers about making the ordinary feel unsettling

By Tom May Published

NEWS Featuring work by Martin Parr, Don McCullin and Jo Spence, 'Dark Tales' highlights how documentary work can make the everyday feel gothic, without ever staging a scare

NEWS
Three small dogs in coats stand side by side on a London pavement, all looking directly at the camera.
A hyena, a fur seal and an elephant in the city: Leica photographer Alan Schaller finds humor, tension and black-and-white beauty in the animals that live among us

By Tom May Published

NEWS The London photographer's second monograph is the first title from his new imprint, Irys Publishing

NEWS
A polar bear leaps between ice floes over open water, its leaping form perfectly mirrored in the still surface below.
This gorgeous photo of a polar bear bounding across the ice offers a masterclass in deciding whether to shoot in color or black-and-white

By Tom May Published

NEWS Sue Flood and Ian Dawson's new exhibition, Midnight Sun, follows a logic that every photographer should study

NEWS
A grainy photogravure of several coated, hatted figures standing in silhouette on a pavement, their long shadows stretching across the ground beneath a glowing street sign.
Long before Bill Brandt, this 1920s postcard salesman worked out how to photograph London after dark without a tripod. A reissued photobook reveals just how he did it

By Tom May Published

BOOK Back in 1924, Fred Judge ditched the tripod, built his own camera and leaned on lamp posts to solve a problem that photographers still wrestle with today

BOOK
A candid, colorful 1960s photograph capturing a group of adults and a young boy laughing together while sitting with their legs dangling over a concrete sea wall at a public bathing area.
How do you define photography in a single sentence? No-one can agree – so this new book charts 200 years of it instead

By Tom May Published

NEWS An impressive new volume from Thames & Hudson features 320 pages of the landmark images that built the medium

NEWS
A model wearing black-framed smart glasses with built-in camera sensors looking directly at the camera.
Samsung's stylish new smart glasses look so utterly normal, you'd never guess they contained a camera – but does that cross the creepy line?

By Tom May Published

News They look remarkably like regular glasses, which is either their greatest strength or their biggest problem

News
A weathered, gray wooden two-story farmhouse stands derelict and decaying in the middle of a barren, harvested cornfield under an overcast sky.
Ben Marcin photographed dozens of abandoned houses in exactly the same way for 20 years, and his new book is a masterclass in editing

By Tom May Last updated

News This new photobook about Baltimore's stubborn, solitary buildings offers an important lesson about organising a series

News
A composite portrait showing Marilyn Stafford in a sun hat holding a Rolleiflex camera on the left, and Albert Einstein seated indoors on the right.
She was handed a camera to capture Albert Einstein and never put it down. Now, as the award that carries Marilyn Stafford's name marks its 10th anniversary, these photographers are continuing her tradition of getting close to the story

By Tom May Published

Talks, retrospectives and a portfolio day mark ten years of the prize that supports women in documentary photography

Awards and Competitions
A black and white photograph of a nude woman reclining on a leather sofa in high heels, holding a lit cigarette.
Two decades after the photographer's death, this new exhibition of Bob Carlos Clarke's photos shows why his most confrontational images were never accidents, but carefully built collaborations

By Tom May Published

News An anniversary show at London's Atlas Gallery puts the process behind the provocation on full display.

News
A side-by-side composite showing a Jean Shrimpton contact sheet marked up in red and yellow grease pencil on the left, and a Mick Jagger contact sheet marked in red and blue on the right.
How David Bailey's photos turned Mick Jagger and Michael Caine into 1960s design icons – never-before-seen contact sheets behind Box of Pin-Ups go on sale

By Tom May Published

News On sale now: 36 never-before-seen sheets from the sittings that produced one of photography's most influential portfolios

News
A wood-panelled station wagon is parked outside a small white cottage with green trim and a Cosmos sign, the sea stretching out behind under a pale blue sky.
This book changed color photography forever by turning Cape Cod’s quiet light into high art – 50 years later, it's back and better

By Tom May Published

News This stunning Joel Meyerowitz project was shot half a century ago but, in this Aperture reissue, the light still looks glorious

News
Two men stand in a rowing boat inside a sea cave, with daylight streaming through a rocky opening ahead of them.
Forget the gear list: Here's what a self-taught Shetland joiner, with a boat strapped to his car, can teach today's photographers about getting the shot that counts

By Tom May Published

NEWS An exhibition marking 150 years of J.D. Rattar proves the best piece of kit a photographer ever owned wasn't a camera at all

NEWS
A close-up, wide-angle shot of a giraffe's head leaning dramatically toward the camera, contrasting its patterned neck and body against a grassy landscape under a dramatic, cloudy sky
This nose-to-lens giraffe photograph earned a major award for its dramatic camera phone perspective

By Tom May Published

NEWS How an ultra-wide lens on an iPhone 13 turned a curious giraffe into an award-winning close-up portrait

NEWS
Kopfus light bulb camera shining in a dark room
Best light bulb security cameras: discrete and easy to install

By Adam Juniper Last updated

buying guide Simple to set up and difficult for bad actors to spot, these are the best light bulb security cameras on sale today

buying guide
A night scene of a dramatic performance with molten iron or fire being thrown into the air, creating glowing orange explosions of sparks and flames shaped like wings against a black background
Old-world fire and new-world tech: how an iPhone's extreme telephoto reach photographed China's ancient art of molten sparks

By Tom May Published

NEWS This striking image of a traditional fire performance earned an Honorable Mention at the 2026 iPhone Photography Awards.

NEWS
Cover and spread from Little People, Big Dreams book on Annie Leibowitz
A fun new picture book traces Annie Leibovitz's journey in photography, and offers kids an early lesson in creative reinvention

By Tom May Published

News The Little People, BIG DREAMS series turns its attention to the iconic portrait photographer

News
A close-up of a cat's face lit in warm red and green tones, its yellow eyes staring directly at the camera.
Nan Goldin has spent 50 years photographing people. But her new film work turns away from them entirely, to focus on nature and animals

By Tom May Published

News Fresh details have been revealed about her first UK show since 2002, and they're sure to raise some eyebrows

News
Apple student discount: Three students sitting on grass and using laptops
Apple student discount: what is it, and how do you get it?

By Tom May Last updated

buying guide Students can get a discount with Apple, and some non-students can get it too! Here's how...

buying guide
Man in beanie hat using an Apple MacBook Pro outside in a grassy area
Adobe student discount: save 71% or more on your Creative Cloud apps if you are in education!

By Tom May Last updated

buying guide If you're a student, teacher or work in education, you can save hundreds in a single year

buying guide
An individual wearing a blue jacket and white pants climbs horizontally across a large, weathered red sculpture with peeling paint against a clear blue sky.
From Japanese parks to German playgrounds, Kerstin Weiser uses harsh flash lighting and color-matched costumes to fuse humans with concrete structures

By Tom May Published

NEWS Kerstin Weiser's award-winning series turns willing volunteers into living extensions of concrete scales and painted slides

NEWS
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