Kim BeilI study art and visual culture professionally, as well as maps, trails, and birds recreationally. Basically, I like looking at things and thinking about looking.
My book, Good Pictures: A History of Popular Photography, tracks 50 stylisticchanges in the medium from its invention in the nineteenth century until the present day. Motion blur, lens flare, grainy film, and the low-angle portraits of the 1940s are a few of my favorite trends. I also love snapshots of picnics, people with their cars, and accidental pictures of the photographer's own walking feet. (I take a lot of these.) The book was released in June 2020 by Stanford University Press.
I also write about modern and contemporary art, visual culture, and writing. You can find links to essays and reviews on the Writing page. I teach art history at Stanford University. Read More Read Less