Phaidon Press is a British publisher of books on the visual arts, including art, architecture, photography, and design worldwide.

As of 2009, Phaidon's headquarters are in London, UK, though they were in Oxford for many years, with offices in New York City, Paris, Berlin, Milan, and Tokyo. The company publishes in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese.

Phaidon was founded in Vienna, Austria, in 1923 by Dr Bela Horowiz and Ludwig Goldscheider, with the objective of delivering high-quality books at affordable prices. They were able to achieve this as pioneers of the international co-edition and with large print-runs. Their first titles were not art books, but books on literature, philosophy and history. Phaidon's large-format art books first emerged in 1936 with plates on Van Gogh, Botticelli, and the French Impressionists.

The Nazi's annexation of Austria forced the company to move to England. After the war, Phaidon launched a program of both popular and scholarly art book publishing. This included the critical catalogue of drawings in the royal collection at Windsor Castle and the 'pocket' series of art history texts (now known as the Arts and Letters series).

Stephen Shore (born October 8, 1947) is an American photographer known for his deadpan images of banal scenes and objects in the United States, and for his pioneering use of color in art photography.

Stephen Shore is interested in photography from an early age. Self-taught, he received a photographic darkroom kit at age six from a forward-thinking uncle. He began to use a 35mm camera three years later and made his first color photographs. At ten he received a copy of Walker Evans's book, American Photographs, which influenced him greatly. His career began at the early age of fourteen, when he made the precocious move of presenting his photographs to Edward Steichen, then curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Recognizing Shore's talent, Steichen bought three of his works. At age seventeen, Shore met Andy Warhol and began to frequent Warhol's studio, the Factory, photographing Warhol and the creative people that surrounded him. In 1971, at the age of 24, Shore became the second living photographer to have a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Steve McCurry (born April 23, 1950) is an American photojournalist best known for his photograph, "Afghan Girl" that originally appeared in National Geographic magazine.

Steve McCurry was born on April 23, 1950 in Philadelphia, attended Marple Newtown High School, and Penn State University. He originally planned to study cinematography and filmmaking, but ended up getting a degree in theater arts and graduating cum laude in 1974. He became interested in photography when he started taking pictures for the Penn State newspaper The Daily Collegian.

After working at Today's Post in King of Prussia for two years, he left for India to freelance. It was here that McCurry learned to watch and wait on life. “If you wait,” he realized, “people will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view.”

His career was launched when, disguised in native garb, he crossed the Pakistan border into rebel-controlled Afghanistan just before the Russian invasion. When he emerged, he had rolls of film sewn into his clothes. Those images, which were published around the world, were among the first to show the conflict. His coverage won the Robert Capa Gold Medal for Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad, an award dedicated to photographers exhibiting exceptional courage and enterprise.

Joel Meyerowitz (born March 6, 1938 in the Bronx, New York City) is a street photographer, and portrait and landscape photographer. He began photographing in color in 1962 and was an early advocate of the use of color during a time when there was significant resistance to the idea of color photography as serious art. In the early 1970s he taught the first color course at the Cooper Union in New York City^{[citation needed]} where many of today's renowned color photographers studied with him.

Meyerowitz graduated from Ohio State University in 1959 with a degree in painting and medical illustration. Inspired by seeing Robert Frank at work, Meyerowitz quit his job as an art director at an advertising agency and took to the streets of New York City with a 35mm camera and black-and-white film, alongside Garry Winogrand,Tony Ray-Jones, Lee Friedlander, Tod Papageorge and Diane Arbus. He drew inspiration from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank and Eugène Atget — he has said "In the pantheon of greats there is Robert Frank and there is Atget".^{[citation needed]}

Amsterdam-based graphic designer Irma Boom specializes in book making who has different work methods and a different view on things such as the use of unfamiliar materials and formats, colors, structures, and typography. Boom applies the sense of touch into all of her book and has established an international reputation, according to an interview in April 2001. To her, books are seen as objects that communicate ideas and stories and speak to all human senses.

Irma Boom was born in Lochem, Gelderland on December 15, 1960. She went to AKI Art Academy in Enschede where she studies graphic design. Boom worked for five years at the Dutch Government Publishing and Printing Office in The Hague. In 1991, Irma Boom Office office was founded. This company works both nationally and internationally in the cultural and commercial sectors. Some of her clients include the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Paul Fentener van Vlissingen, InsiKode Outside, Museum, Boijmans Van Beuningen, Zumtobel, Ferrari, Vitra International, N Ai Publishers, and Camper.