Despite his fame as a painter, filmmaker and colourist, Andy Warhol’s use of photographic imagery permeates his practice. However, it was only later in his life, when acquainted with the compact cameras of the 1970s, that he focused on photography in its own right.

Using 35mm black and white film, Warhol (1928 – 1987) carried a camera with him most of the time – taking up to 36 frames a day. Capturing everyday details, people, street scenes, celebrity parties, interiors, cityscapes and signage his subjects all reflect the artist’s characteristic indifference to hierarchy.

Mark Neville's experimental documentary project Deeds Not Words is a vivid portrait of a community dealing with environmental pollution, birth defects and a high profile court case.

It's an optimistic story of industrial growth and decline, regeneration and solidarity, raising photography's role in influencing policy issues.

Claire Aho (b. 1925, Finland) was a pioneering editorial photographer and innovator of colour techniques.

In the early 1950s, at a highpoint in Finnish design culture, Aho established a Helsinki-based photography studio under her own name. Her prolific output spanned advertising, editorial, reportage and fashion for a range of commercial applications. She dealt with all aspects of the creative process, from casting models, set-making, styling and lighting to developing and printing her own images.

Irish born photographer Tom Wood (b. 1951) has, for the last four decades, continuously recorded the daily lives of the people of Liverpool and the Merseyside area.

Never seen without his camera, and constantly moving between different formats and photographic styles, colour and black and white, Wood readily mixes images of strangers with portraits of family and friends. His work, although documentary in its approach, is much more fluid than that – an exploration of the medium of photography as much as a celebration of the city of Liverpool and its inhabitants.