We first spotted these gorgeous, colorized lantern slides by photographer Asahel Curtis on NPR’s blog. The Minnesota-born artist first picked up a camera when his family moved the teenager to Seattle in the late 1800s. In the 1920s, Curtis was commissioned by the Washington State Department of Conservation and Development to shoot a series of slides (hand-colored) that would be used to promote tourism and immigration to the Pacific Northwest area. The stunning landscape images now belong to the Washington State Archives, and we’ve shared a selection of them past the break. The photos have a surreal, dreamlike quality to them. Pictures of apples look like something from Snow White, and the Douglas firs receding into darkness could easily be a still from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Click through for a better look.
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London-based photographer Ray Lewis was asked by Requiem for a Dream director Darren Aronofsky to aim his camera behind the scenes of the filmmaker’s most recent movie, Black Swan. The tale of an obsessive and psychologically tormented ballerina in her quest for perfection was the perfect fodder for a series of compelling images captured by Lewis’ lens. They’re quiet moments, but filled with the same expressionistic intensity the final product delivered. Apart from stars Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, and Vincent Cassel, Lewis was able to photograph the filmmaker and his crew at work. And is that a glimpse of Portman’s dance double — you know, the same woman who tried to bash the Garden State actress, claiming she was taking credit for scenes that featured the professional ballerina? Take a peek in our gallery below.
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For a while there it seemed like every new painter who caught our eye was deeply entrenched in the whole hyperrealism trend. What can we say? We’re a sucker for the bait and switch of a painting that looks exactly like a photo, but isn’t. UK-based artist Nathan Ford, whose work we spotted thanks to Booooooom, may have finally broken that spell. With him, it’s all about the paint. Thick oil drips down his canvases, giving the dark, urban landscapes a life of their own. There’s an ethereal quality to these nighttime street scenes, like they’ve only briefly surfaced, but could wash away at a moment’s notice — almost like you’re looking through a pane of glass that’s about to fog over. Hurry, click through before they disappear completely!
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Photographer Viktoria Sorochinski began this project in 2005, when the young 23-year-old mother and the 3-year-old daughter’s bond was most dramatic. “It was often hard to tell who held the power and control between the two, and who was learning the essence of being a human in this world,” she writes. So, she brought out the co-dependent and child-like nature of both through folk tale-influenced, phantasmagoric scenes. As time passed, both grew and the young child drifted off into an imaginary world of her own. The dynamics of this changing relationship come to life in a beautiful series Anna & Eve, currently on view through February 25 at the Courtesy Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago. See the series in our slideshow — part documentary, part enchanted family album.
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Manchester’s Hulme Hippodrome is a crumbling beauty hidden within an unassuming, modern facade. Inside, the theater’s Rococo touches, cracked plaster, and plush, red velvet speaks of a bygone era when talent was still required to hit the stage and variety performances were the talk of the town. The Hippodrome saw the likes of comedic duo Laurel and Hardy, Nina Simone, and many other famous faces since its opening in 1901. The decadently decorated musical venue has been deserted since the ’80s, though there are recent efforts to restore the largely abandoned spot.
Luckily photographer Andrew Brooks has been able to capture the theater in all its decomposing glory. His camera is like a ghost, peering beyond darkened stairways, invisible in the shadows. The fisheye perspective he employs contributes to the already eerie, dreamlike quality in each image. The artist teamed up with writer Hayley Flynn to document their city’s forgotten spaces, ravaged by time. Flynn shares stories about each location on her blog, the histories of which are fascinating. Explore the haunting Hippodrome in our gallery past the break.
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Beautiful, but almost painful to imagine their execution, Alexi Torres’ intricate oil paintings are created from an obsessive, “woven” technique. We want to see the size of Torres’ paintbrush that he uses to craft a labyrinthine maze of knotwork and interconnected strands. The artist focuses his attention on recreating several iconic images, like the portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Mick Jagger. His unique process takes on a more mythical feel, however, when constructing fantastical feminine figures, incorporating organic elements and other nature-inspired forms. Visit Torres’ complex, woven creations in our gallery below. Is your hand cramping yet?
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We’ve seen the whole self-portraits by a talented makeup artist thing before. But unlike Andy Alcala’s face painting odes to famous works of art, which was all about the power of transformation, this series of photos Nadia Wicker embraces the beauty that can be found in the abstract. Shooting her closeup images against a black backdrop and using colored lights, the France-based artist presents the viewer with a face that looks like it has been created out of swirling fireworks. Do we have any idea what she actually looks like? Not really. And that’s precisely the point.
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We know that some kids just aren’t alright, but this time, we’re focusing on their folks. From ghastly, painterly scenes of classic filicide to controversial contemporary photographers who use their children as muses, here are a few examples of questionable, problematic and plain terrible parenting through the ages. Are we being too harsh? Did we miss someone? Feel free to tsk-tsk in the comment section.
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Just in time for New York Fashion Week, Juergen Teller, the German-born photographer most known for his cheeky refusal to keep his ad campaigns for designers like Helmut Lang, Yves Saint Laurent, Vivienne Westwood, and Marc Jacobs distinct from his most intimate, non-commissioned images, has an exciting new show opening at Lehmann Maupin. “I don’t really see it as commercial work when I do commercial work,” he has explained. “I see it more like… Let’s say somebody wants to do an independent film, right? They have to cast actresses and choose locations and all that. So I’m just using this stuff to create my own fantasies and dreams.”
The exhibition gives a prime sample of Teller’s no-holds-barred approach to picture-taking, which at times has lent his work an air of contention. Divided into three groups, the first series of Teller’s show features alluring portraits of Vivienne Westwood (wearing nothing but her fiery red mane) and photos of model Kristen McMenamy, which were controversial for their purportedly “pornographic” quality. The second set, Men and Women, depicts what some see as representations of the stages of masculinity — from coming-of-age to loss of virility — as contrasted with female power. The third grouping, Keys to the House, features intimate shots of friends and family as well as landscape photos taken at Teller’s home in Suffolk, UK. Click through our slideshow for a sample of photos from this bold, racy, and beautiful show.
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You’ve probably seen Jonathan May’s subjects in films like Killing Zoe or Heat. The photographer’s archetypal characters illustrate a bank robbery in his Heist series, which explores villainy and innocence in alter ego-style portraits. The images are shot head-on, showing how one’s calm and neutral demeanor can quickly transform into something aggressive or fearful. Of course, May’s portraits are humorous caricatures, complete with pantyhose masks, streaming eyeliner, and snarling grimaces galore. See May’s good versus evil accost below.
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