Our pals at the Museum of the City of New York and El Museo del Barrio announce this year's line up for their outdoor Wednesday parties celebrating summer and uptown NYC! Don't miss the tribute to Prince!

Chicano Park, San Diego, California © J Raymond Mireles  

aCurator contributing photographer* John Mireles recently embarked upon a journey to begin capturing the current face of America in intimate portraits. John has now completed the West Coast and will soon set off on a three-month cross-country road trip to complete the project.

*(See Fracking in the Bakken)

 Give it up for Aunt Doll! Sharing her Aunt's realness with the rest of us in a rather fabulous fashion, Michelle Maguire, a photographer and prop stylist based in Columbus, Ohio, has published a "small-edition artist's book featuring eye-popping, hand-printed images of my blunt, funny, completely unimpressed Italian-American great-aunt, Doll, with colorful Aunt Doll anecdotes by my husband Aaron Beck."

Definitely good value and Michelle is also making the most of it over on her website in the Salami Dreamin' pages.

 

  Gonchigsuren Vanchin is a Mongolian photographer with a 40 year history as a photojournalist. 

Gonchigsuren has launched a fundraiser not just to have his worthy book published AND have an exhibition, but ALSO included is a competition for young photographers - he is a noble man with a fantastic archive who deserves your backing. This is the first campaign I have seen in a while where the book is under $50 - it's $39 and will be well worth it (+ shipping!)

Please spread the word and help show the world this little-seen history "One feature of this book is showing the difference between daily lives in socialism and democracy."  I challenge you to watch the video and not fall in love. 

Last month, I was talking to a photographer I admire enormously and he told me had just seen one the best photographs of his life, at Yossi Milo here in NYC. It turned out to be the above 'Two Girls' by Chris Killip, whose photos I have much admired after embarrassingly only discovering him rather late in life. The exhibition was ending the following day so I bunked off work for the afternoon and headed to Chelsea.

Yossi Milo Gallery's presentation of fifty gelatin silver prints from the photographs that constituted his book 'In Flagrante' (Secker & Warburg, 1988) hand-printed by Killip, is the first time since 1988 that the series has been exhibited in its entirety and the first time ever in the United States. The images are culturally familiar and endearing to me and it was interesting to talk to some of the American viewers about the miners' strike and the Queen's silver jubilee street parties I remember so well. 

The unassuming photographer has been working at Harvard as professor of visual and environmental studies for many years and apparently will soon retire and cease printing his negatives. So if you're thinking about purchasing a print, now is the time to do it. 

Yossi Milo is pleased to announce that the J. Paul Getty Museum now owns a set of all 50 of Killip's prints and will mount an exhibition in the coming months. The book, In Flagrante Two, is out now from Steidl.

View the full screen aCurator magazine photo feature.

The Bank of Canada honored the historic reign of Queen Elizabeth on September 9th, 2015, with the launch of a commemorative bank note. The note is a variation of the existing $20, and features this portrait from 1951 of then-Princess Elizabeth, by Yousuf Karsh. The same photo, with her tiara removed, was previously used for the 1954 Canadian Landscape series as well as for a commemorative note in 1967 marking Canada's centennial.  

If you like that sort of thing you can read more about the new note, and Canada's bank note history, in this interesting article. 

This portrait is the culmination, in photographs at least, of Marissa Roth's now 31-year-long journey. 

Prints from "One Person Crying" make up a traveling exhibition. See news and updates over on the One Person Crying blogsite.  

"Free Summer Block Party Series Connecting East Harlem and Museum Mile Featuring Live Music, Art, Food and More."

Summer is most definitely upon us and I for one am looking forward to New York City's stinking hot August. But 'Uptown Bounce' kicks off this Wednesday, July 22, 2015! From 6-9 pm, El Museo del Barrio and Museum of the City of New York Present Uptown Bounce: Summer Nights @ 104th and Fifth.

Very interesting to see that Michael Hoppen Gallery now has a gallery of images available to purchase online. 

Talking to the BJP: "The online shop will allow us to not only showcase new and emerging talent, that otherwise might not have made its way into the main gallery space, but will also aim to expose some fascinating projects and one off pieces from within the collection," says Hoppen. "I think our programme of online shows will have something for everyone."

I have been curious about online print sales for years now, who is buying online, at what price points. "Affordable" might be the key here, but I still say "who knows?". Good luck to Hoppen on taking this step.

Newly available first edition gravures from Karl Blossfeldt's gorgeous plant series for £250! 

© Matt Henry 

And just launched are Joseph Szabo's Rolling Stones Fans. In 1978 Szabo was gifted a ticket by two of his students in return for a ride to see the gig in Philadelphia. He found himself immersed in a crowd of 90,000... A book is out now.

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The photography world lost a Great last month, with the departure of the lovely Harold Feinstein. Feinstein's wife, Judith Thompson, had wisely spent several years recording him speaking about his life and work - just a short clip of which is seen here. "This clip, edited from a 15 minute reverie on life and photography came from a taped conversation on June 17th, just three days before he passed. Here he speaks about the gift of life and the continuous adventure of unwrapping this gift...even after departing from the body. Harold's appreciation for life and beauty will live on through his images and teachings for generations to come."

"When your mouth drops open, click the shutter." - Harold Feinstein

Check out a previous blog post, celebrating Feinstein's retrospective book.