"The artist's creative process includes the transformation of outdated, abandoned and obsolete books into coiled, crumpled and sculptural objects. Following this labor intensive reconfiguration, she photographs them and presents the final artworks as large-scale pigment prints - lush in color, highly detailed and impressive."

Young Antonio Pulgarin has been impressing the photo-community a fair bit over the last couple of years. Personally, I fell for him whilst judging AI-AP's annual competition Latin American Fotografía 2 in 2013, when he entered an image from another body of work about family and identity, "Mother and I".

Here's Antonio talking about this project:

"Over the years I developed a strong connection to the Dominican Republic, the culture, and its people.  My goal with this project was not only to shed light on the issues taking place in the Dominican Republic but to celebrate its cultural diversity as well. I initially began this work as a means to connect with my step-father but I connected with so much more. Not only did I build a connection with my step-father but I built one with people of Bani. I wanted to utilize my camera as an instrument..an instrument meant to unify and dispel any sense of separation. As a photographer I feel an immense responsibility to respect, honor, and protect the stories of the individuals I photograph. This sentiment is heightened with this particular project since the subject matter is deeply personal to me."

"In his book The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald describes the sea anglers along the shore near Lowestoft; he writes: 'I do not believe that these men sit by the sea all day and all night so as not to miss the flounder rise or the cod come in to shallower waters, as they claim. They just want to be in a place where they have the world behind them, and before them nothing but emptiness.'" 

"This emptiness was what I set out to observe on my series Brighter Later; of course emptiness can mean many things, but to me it was a space wanting to be filled, a space of optimism and possibilities.  Looking out to sea you truly are looking into the future, seeing the weather and the waves that will at some point arrive at the shores of this island, you predict their inevitable, unstoppable approach." - Brian David Stevens

View the full screen magazine photo feature. 

British photographer Brian David Stevens' beautiful project looks out, to the future, through a child's eyes - celebrating his joy at closing one eye and then the other as a kid, he made these coastline photos into diptychs. He talks of the emptiness but says "...to me it was a space wanting to be filled, a space of optimism and possibilities. Looking out to sea you truly are looking into the future, seeing the weather and the waves that will at some point arrive at the shores of this island, you predict their inevitable, unstoppable approach."

Be sure to check out some of BDS' other projects including the story Brian David Stevens Finds Billy Childish, Portraits, Notting Hill Sound Systems, and They That Are Left, Remembrance Day portraits.

Get the book!!!! 

"Nigerian Identity is a series of photographic portraits of my fellow Nigerians in which all people are presented in a uniform manner: photographed on a white seamless background, looking directly into the lens, and enhanced so that their skin tones are virtually identical. The idea behind this discipline stems from my experiences living in America.

"Black" has always been used as a generic descriptive label. "The angry black guy", "The new black sitcom". I see myself as being more than just black. However that is usually not how I am perceived in America. Regardless of my unique heritage, I am reduced to being just black. The homogenization of the skin tones in my project is my commentary on the tendency to reduce people to just a color. In these images, the skin tones are rich, deep and beautiful to celebrate our beautiful skin, for which we are often oppressed and marginalized.

Drawing inspiration from photographers who have created typologies of their subjects, including the German August Sander, the American Richard Avedon, and the Nigerian photographer J.D 'Okhai Ojeikere, I use a plain background to eliminate any cultural or ethnic context, whether of urban disrepair or African wilderness. I want to contest the superficial travel or tourist photography approach to peoples who may be unfamiliar to the photographs' viewers. The square format and plain background allows the viewer to fully engage the subject with their gaze and all the emotions conveyed.

As an African living in America, I find that the line between celebrating and exoticizing African culture is increasingly blurry. To add some clarity to the current discourse, I photograph my subjects in an elegant and direct manner. It is my hope that this will create a connection between subject and viewer. It's also my way of challenging viewers to understand what it is like to be "the other." Above all else, it is a reminder that the culture and identity of a people should be always be appreciated, respected and honored."

Bill Bernstein is well known for his work with musicians, celebrities, and much more, and not least of all as Paul McCartney's personal photographer of many years. 

Disco: The Bill Bernstein Photographs is out now from Reel Art Press. Bill was on assignment shooting an awards dinner at New York's notorious nightclub, Studio 54. As the dinner ended, the clubbers arrived. Short on film, Bill bought ten rolls off a fellow photographer and stayed for the night. Thus began a project shooting New York's then-vibrant and ever-notorious nightclub scene.

View the full screen magazine photo feature.

From the book's foreword, by Horse Meat Disco's James Hillard: "These shots capture the very essence of what going out was, is, and should be, all about. They showed the true democracy of the dance floor where anyone could be a star, as long as they had the right attitude and flair ... The pictures in this book are a document of an incredibly exciting and creative time, not only in music, but also in social, political and fashion history too.

"During this time of gay liberation, women's rights and racial equality, the dance floor transcended sex, age and status. As the Disco Bats glided across the ceiling at Barnum's, Wall Street suits partied beneath with transgender party people. Manhattan was the epicentre of disco, and Bill Bernstein captured it all."

Personally I am sorry I wasn't born a decade earlier to experience the disco scene but I have been happy to enjoy its legacy, House music.

The release will coincide with an exhibition at Serena Morton Gallery in Ladbroke Grove, West London, from 3 December 2015 - 24 January 2016. 

This is just one aspect of Sheri Lynn Behr's ongoing coverage of surveillance, "Be Seeing You." She began observing the daily intrusions several years ago and has only had more material to work with since. In the city we are recorded incessantly; some of the cameras blend sneakily into their surroundings, others feel stuck right in your face like the lens of Bruce Gilden. But Sheri also finds cameras in fields, seemingly surveilling sheep. 

"We know that cameras are everywhere. We try to avoid people pointing smartphones and other hand-held cameras at us as we walk down the street, but are we conscious of all the cameras lurking above us? We know we're being watched, even in the most benign locations, yet as we become more accustomed to the presence of surveillance cameras, we stop paying attention.

"For NoMatterWhere, I photograph streets, buildings and walls, pointing my camera at the cameras that are watching me, some more noticeable than others. While I certainly believe that Big Brother can be useful in some cases, I also think we need to be more aware of the scope of surveillance in our daily lives-and how it impacts our privacy. I make these photographs to raise questions that come from the claustrophobic sense of being constantly observed, no matter where we find ourselves." Sheri Lynn Behr

"The pull of the ocean surrenders to the pull of the sky."

The start of a new series, these inverted seascapes are hot out of Michael Massaia's magic darkroom. Massaia spent a lot of time by and in the ocean in his youth. Now he finds himself taking a different view of the elements he reveres.