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Sean O’Hagan

Sean O’Hagan writes about photography for the Guardian and the Observer, and is also a general feature writer

September 2024

  • Michael Craig-Martin photographed at the Royal Academy gallery in London for the Observer New Review by Suki Dhanda.

    ‘I have taken risks, but Damien is a staggering risk-taker’: Michael Craig-Martin on style, the YBAs and being the great late bloomer of British art

    Ahead of a major retrospective at the Royal Academy, the veteran artist and mentor to Hirst, Lucas et al talks about his nomadic early years, halcyon days at Goldsmiths – and the moment he stopped being ‘frightened’ of colour

August 2024

  • An alligator lurking in low water at the bottom of the pink-tiled swimming pool

    ‘I wanted my photos to reflect my disorientation’: rising star Anastasia Samoylova on how Florida’s hyperreal streets inspired her work

  • Darcus Beese with his arm around his mother Barbara, who is smiling at him

    Darcus Howe’s son Darcus Beese and his activist mother, Barbara: ‘He was imbued with the spirit of the struggle’

July 2024

  • Joni Mitchell in Window<br>Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell looks out of a window at her Laurel Canyon home, 1970. (Photo by Henry Diltz/Corbis via Getty Images). THIS PIC IS £100 PER USAGE - FROM GETTY. James.Arnold@gettyimages.com

    Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers review – the myriad faces of a musical maverick

  • Dancers leaping in wild shapes

    ‘My flash kept blinding everyone on the dancefloor’: Elaine Constantine on capturing 90s northern soul all-nighters

June 2024

  • Black and white portrait of John Cale.

    ‘Hip-hop is the new avant garde’: John Cale on Lou Reed, anger and continual reinvention

  • Bob Dylan playing chess with his tour manager, Victor Maymudes, at Bernard's Cafe Espresso in Woodstock, 1964.

    Daniel Kramer obituary

May 2024

  • Alvaro Barrington photographed in his east London studio by Suki Dhanda for the Observer New Review.

    ‘Biggie, Tupac, Ghostface – those guys saved my life’: Alvaro Barrington on hip-hop, carnival and his Tate show

  • Prisoner Polaroids all untitled / no captions. These are Sean's favourites / 5 are exclusive

    ‘My role was to be a truthful witness’: photographer Jack Lueders-Booth’s Polaroids of American female prisoners

April 2024

  • birds on a telegraph wire in Three images by Diana Matar of locations where people have died in encounters with police - one in Texas and two in New Mexico

    ‘These people matter’: why Diana Matar photographs the sites where US police have killed civilians

  • Street Street memorial on Lecky Road, Derry, 1971. All images © estate of Akihiko Okamura

    ‘The surreal dislocation of the everyday’: how Japanese photographer Akihiko Okamura captured the Troubles as never before

March 2024

  • An armed soldier sits next to a TV. Rawa, Iraq, 2006

    ‘I was always an uncertain and confused observer’: war photographer Peter van Agtmael on decades on the frontline

  • A line of people walking across sand dunes

    ‘I wanted to humanise those lost in the statistics’: four directors on their new movies depicting refugee journeys

  • Francesca Woodman, Self Portrait at 13, 1972.

    Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron: Portraits to Dream In review – an intriguing double act

  • Rose Dugdale, Dublin, 1974.

    The enigma of Rose Dugdale: what drove a former debutante to become Britain and Ireland’s most wanted terrorist?

February 2024

  • Seán Ronayne with his recording gear in a woodland in Cork, Ireland

    ‘Total immersive obsession’: meet the man on a mission to record every bird in Ireland

    The ornithologist’s all-consuming quest has made him an unlikely celebrity, and his passion for nature is raising awareness about the seriousness of Ireland’s ecological crisis
  • Wim Wenders photographed in his Berlin office by Malte Jaeger for the Observer New Review, November 2023

    ‘All my films deal with how to live’: Wim Wenders on Herzog, spirituality and shooting a movie in 16 days

    The veteran auteur on how film-making has shaped him, the brutal lesson he learned from teacher Werner Herzog, and why his Oscar-nominated Perfect Days will make you yearn for a simpler life
  • Self-portrait with [his sister and first model] Deborah, 1940s.Self-portrait with Deborah, 1940s

    ‘An enigma, an artist who walked to his own beat’: the everyday sublime of photographer Saul Leiter

    The late American photographer, who quietly captured small, luminous details of life on the streets of New York, is celebrated in the biggest UK show of his work

January 2024

  • 1. Josef Koudelka, Romania, 1968; from Josef Koudelka: Next (Aperture, 2023). Romania (Gypsy with Horse), 1968.

    Book of the day
    Josef Koudelka: Next by Melissa Harris review – in praise of a wandering star

    A visual biography of the restless and revered Czech photographer reveals his affinity with the Roma people and his eye for haunting, unforgiving landscapes

December 2023

  • Jonathan Glazer, film director

    Jonathan Glazer on his Holocaust film The Zone of Interest: ‘This is not about the past, it’s about now’

    The director’s audacious new film about Auschwitz’s commandant was 10 years in the making. He explains how it was made – and the importance of finding light in the darkness
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