Although NYC-based English photographer Shane Gray’s photographs, which we recently spotted over at Booooooom, are shot in broad daylight and without special effects, there’s something magical, often almost surreal about the scenes he captures. ”Through the lens,” Gray writes, “I continue to witness our changing world amidst the enlightening, bland and random across the gamut of our existence with a continuing fascination fo the human predicament and different environs.” Sure, but he also has a knack for color and, it seems, a habit of being in the right place at the right time, which always helps. Click through to see a few of our favorite snaps from Gray’s New York photographs, and then be sure to head over to his website to check out a vast wealth of his work. … Read More

Long before it was figuring into the plotlines of popular shows like Gossip Girl or luring in fresh-faced transplants with false promises of spacious lofts filled with likeminded creative types, Brooklyn was synonymous with the idea of hip-hop style. In Jamel Shabazz’s Back in the Days: Remix, a recently-released expanded edition of the noted photographer’s 2001 book, he theatrically documents the fashion that dominated early days of the scene — from the door-knocker earrings and Cazal glasses to the short shorts and oversized boomboxes.

“He did with pictures what rappers did with words,” hip-hop historian Bill Adler has explained. “He made these folks visible the way rap made them audible. He took everyday people and turned them into icons. Nobody told him to do this. He just went out and struck gold.”

For Shabazz, however, the motivation behind the images was much simpler. “It started for fun, but progressed into making people feel good about themselves,” he told The New York Times. “I’d approach them and say ‘Excuse me, brother. My name is Jamel Shabazz and I’m a photographer. When I see you, I see greatness. I see the future.’” Click through to travel back in time with a selection of images from Shabazz’s fantastic collection, and visit his website for more information on the book and his other work. … Read More

Can snapping close-up photos of a subject’s head, hands, and feet reveal more about who they are than a traditional portrait? The idea might seem counterintuitive, but that’s what we’re pondering after looking at the work in Adde Adesokan’s ongoing street photography series, Triptychs of Strangers, which we spotted thanks to Photojojo!. When viewed on their own, each of the frames is chock full of details but lacking in context; taken as a whole, the composite result is pretty illuminating, boiling a person down to his or her most essential parts. Click through and let us know if you agree. … Read More

Thanks to “New Colour” luminaries like William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, it’s hard to imagine that there was once a time when color photography was sneered at in the art world. In those early days of the medium, Fred Herzog, whose work we spotted over on … Read More