Kim Beil

I 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, trcks 50 stylistic changes 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.