Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs will present Heinrich Kuehn and the Photo-Secession: Selected Works from May 23rd to  June 29th. This exhibition complements two current exhibitions in New York City: Heinrich Kuehn and his American Circle at the Neue Galerie and Heinrich Kuehn: Viennese Photo-Secessionist at Howard Greenberg Gallery. "Kuehn, an Austrian photographer, was influential in the Pictorialist movement, which strove to create photography that would be accepted as fine art. Before the turn of the 20th century, the Pictorialists experimented with processes and manipulated the photographic image to create tonalities and textures that resembled drawings, prints or paintings. They consciously distanced themselves from earlier approaches to photography that, they felt, emphasized scientific and technical expertise over artistic expression."

© Tabitha Soren

On June 1st, 2012, Tabitha Soren's series 'Running' opens at Indianapolis' Museum of Contemporary Art as part of their 'Natural World' exhibition. Photographing first friends and then strangers, Tabitha says "My static landscapes needed people on the verge of something." The photographer has been shooting this series across three years in Mexico and Canada, and the prints are nice and big.

1960s, California © Anderson Smith Sr.

Anderson Smith, photographer and radio show host, told me about having proudly inherited his father's archive. Left in boxes, the logistics and challenges that accompany sorting, editing and digitizing analog materials are complicated and stressful and I wish any of you good luck with that! I am thrilled to publish his work for the first time - here's to you Mr Anderson!

"My father's name was Anderson Smith Sr. He was a machine shop worker who had a passion for photography. He was a part of the Chicago Camera Club and had won numerous awards. He photographed everything. He was very passionate about photography, however never really pursued it professionally."



Muhammad Ali






All images © Anderson Smith Sr.

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The Alice Austen House needs you!

Alice Austen, one of America's earliest and most prolific female photographers broke away from the constraints of the Victorian era to create her own life. Her home, located in Staten Island, now serves as a museum dedicated to her work and life. The Alice Austen House Museum is up for the 2012 Partners in Preservation grant - a grant that will allow the museum to help preserve a very important part of the history of photography.

Huldrekall © Felipe Vasquez

You have to love photography students - well, those with vision and skill and determination, anyway. I admire Felipe Vasquez. He took his vision, and costumes, off to Patagonia...



Mandragora

"'Chimeras' is a photographic project that explores mysticism within different societies of the world, as interpreted through conceptual self-portraiture. This series was shot in the Patagonia region of Chile during the months of January and February of 2012.

'Chimeras' consists of four distinct characters inspired by factual ritualism practiced in primitive cultures, in addition to humankind's faithful beliefs in the supernatural. All of these characters were created with the help of artist Andrew Jordan, whose incalculable expertise was fundamental to the development of my vision.

Jordan and I designed the costumes for 'Chimeras' so that they would complement Patagonia's remarkably diverse and rich terrain. Its mountains, lakes, forests and meadows quickly became home to the creatures and through the camera, I was able to capture their metaphysical existence."

Li, China, Brazil © James Mollison

"Where Children Sleep" is an important, beautifully executed book and exhibition from photographer James Mollison. aCurator is publishing a selection in two parts.

View the full screen magazine photography feature, part 1.

View the full screen magazine photography feature, part 2.

"When, in 2004, Fabrica (Benetton's creative research centre) asked me to come up with an idea for engaging with children's rights, I found myself thinking about my bedroom: how significant it was during my childhood, and how it reflected what I had and who I was. It occurred to me that a way to address some of the complex situations and social issues affecting children would be to look at the bedrooms of children in all kinds of different circumstances. From the start, I didn't want it just to be about 'needy children' in the developing world, but rather something more inclusive, about children from all types of situations. It seemed to make sense to photograph the children themselves, too, but separately from their bedrooms, using a neutral background.

My thinking was that the bedroom pictures would be inscribed with the children's material and cultural circumstances - the details that inevitably mark people apart from each other - while the children themselves would appear in the set of portraits as individuals, as equals... just as children.

Millions of families around the world sleep together in one room, and millions of children sleep in a space of convenience, rather than a place they can in any sense call their room. I came to appreciate just how privileged I am to have had a personal kingdom to sleep in and grow.

For me, the project became a vehicle to think about issues of poverty and wealth, about the relationship of children to personal possessions, and the power of children - or lack of it - to make decisions about their lives. But this book is not a campaign. There's nothing scientific about the selection of children featured: I travelled where I could, often alongside other projects, and many of the pictures result from chance encounters, following my photographer's nose. I am not qualified to give anyone a lecture on the state of childhood today, or the future of children's rights. Although I have relied on the help of Save the Children, Italy, there is no agenda to the book other than my own journey and curiosity, and wanting to share in pictures and words the stories that I found interesting, or that moved me.

In the end, I hope the pictures and the stories in this book speak to children. Yes, so that lucky children (like I was) may better appreciate what they have. But more than that, I hope this book will help children think about inequality, within and between societies around the world, and perhaps start to figure out how, in their own lives, they may respond." James Mollison Venice, May 2010

Alex, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil © James Mollison

Exchange Rate, 2012 © Azhar Chougle

Here's a cheeky little series from shockingly young, Indian-born, Brooklyn-dwelling, SVA photography grad Azhar Chougle : 'Unfamiliar Moments Across the Atlantic.'

"America, in my mind, maintains an amusing state of irony and indecisiveness. These photographs serve as a reflection of my own alienation, frustration and intrigue as I adapt to its atmosphere. Examining random encounters with the American image, the results are a baffling and bizarre recreation of a culture overlaid by a foreigner's perception."

Gregory Peck and Mary Badham, "To Kill A Mockingbird" © Leo Fuchs, courtesy V&M

The fabulous V&M have another gorgeous photography collection on their hands, prints now available at affordable prices. Here's the blurb:

In the 1950s and 60s, Leo Fuchs photographed Hollwood's "Who's Who"-- Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Sean Connery, Shirley MacLaine, Tony Curtis, Montgomery Clift and Alfred Hitchcock, to name a few.