»Auto Focus» features the work of 75 contemporary photographers from around the world for whom self-portraiture is a central part of their work. Issues of identity national, sexual, racial, personal or artistic are key to all the images featured in this book. In an extended introduction, historical examples are used to enrich the understanding of how self-portraiture was first used in photography and to illustrate how the contemporary self-portrait derived and developed from those origins. The book, organized around five themes dominant in contemporary self-portraiture, provides a clear guide for readers through a significant and dynamic genre.