Exposures

Presented here uncropped and in their full glory, these photographs show why Jane Bown has been hailed as the natural successor of Cartier-Bresson and as one of the UK's preeminent portrait photographers In this new collection, Jane Brown's astonishingly candid photographs are artfully presented, and behind-the-scenes unpublished pictures that hit the newsroom floor are finally revealed. Working almost exclusively in black and white and with natural light, Jane produces images that reveal the private side of her famous subjects. She works quickly, unobtrusively, and decisively, often snatching great pictures under impossible circumstances. She has an unerring instinct for capturing the telling moment, even in the midst of a media assault or rushed in mid-interview. At every shoot, Jane takes numerous wonderful studies, but the "definitive" image is usually chosen by the Observer picture editor, sometimes on the basis of something as arbitrary as how much space was available on the page. Here, Jane's photos finally get to speak for themselves.