Paris Photo report in NYTimes

The Saturday NY Times has an article about Paris Photo, supposedly the world's larget photo fair. As such, its got a representative sampling of major photography trends.

The black-and-white masters of the early- and mid-20th century set out to explore what photography could do, through experiments with technique and form, through the near-abstraction of nudes and through documenting, as Henri Cartier-Bresson put it, the "decisive moment" of everyday life. In other words, they were artistic photographers.

In contrast, while today's photographic artists have absorbed this legacy, they are also influenced by advertising, fashion, video art, painting, sculpture and Conceptual art. They seem more intent on altering than on recording reality. They are also responding to an existing - and increasingly competitive - market.