We are delighted to bring you our August Critic's Choice by Peter Beaumont of The Observer.

Peter has chosen "Paper Bags" by Nicolas Ferrando and writes: "The tension between what is real and imagined is an over-familiar modern photographic conceit. Reality, it says, is never as real as you think it is."

"The reality is these images have become over-familiar. Postcards for the fridge door. And in becoming icons they have also become clichés, stripped of our curiosity."

"Ferrando restores them. His images succeed because we know these trophy photographs - too often discussed - that he is undermining. He strips away the imposed pomposity of over-interpretation and you laugh out loud." Read on.

Don't forget to put the 10th August in the diary; details about our Private View are listed below.

We Recommend: Coming Up For Air

Stephen Gill has just published his latest book "Coming Up For Air".

Gill travelled the length and breadth of Japan during 2008 and 2009 visiting aquariums. Basing the book on fish and things aquatic, the pictures are as much about the journey to find the fish as they are about fish, of which there are very few in the book. His familiar use of faded colours and bleached exposures offer a gentle and meditative view of Japan.