Anna Moller is a New York-based photographer whose images are here to cheer me up after a long week, reminding me how difficult muted simplicity is to achieve. Happy Friday! 

Dylan Coulter's ongoing project 'In The Nineties' was inspired by a photograph he made of his grandfather, age 91. His project is evolving into "an exploration of aging which I find fascinating, particularly since people are living longer in increasingly vital ways."












Nathelle Greenleaf, 95

For many New Yorkers, summer isn't summer without a visit to Fire Island, a narrow 30 mile long  stretch of glorious beaches with a mixture of communities organized into hamlets. The Fire Island Invasion, now in its 35th year, is a July 4th event that retells the story of how a drag queen from Cherry Grove, upon being denied service at a bar in the Pines organized a bunch of other queens for an 'invasion'. Zeren Badar took the ferry over this year and recorded some of the fun and games.







All images © Zeren Badar

ICP graduate, Barcelona/New York-based photographer and teacher, Lauren Hermele made this noteworthy series whilst on a Fulbright fellowship in Romania last year.

Crit is a village in Transylvania, population 900.

"It took me a few days to get used to the rush hour traffic in Crit. Every morning and evening, the cows and sheep would take over the roads. It was there that I confronted many of the preconceived ideas I had about whether Romania's small agricultural villages were changing since it joined the European Union. For better or worse, I discovered that there was little if no change. Living in Crit is a tightrope walk between extreme beauty and what the locals refer to as "mizerie." Are the villagers prisoners of paradise like one of my colleagues suggested? I'm not sure, but that poignant statement has echoed in my mind louder than I care to admit."
 


"The majority of the villagers are Roma (Gypsy), but really are just poor Romanians with little in common with the caravan dwelling Roma of popular imagination. Even though Romania joined the European Union in 2007 after being marginalized from Western Europe for so long, little progress has been made. The local schools lack resources and are in poor conditions, alcoholism is prevalent; children start working in the fields and take on adult responsibilities early in life. Malnutrition and illiteracy also weave their way in and out of many households. Like many small villages in rural Romania, within the lyrical chaos and beauty in Crit, there is a structure that is inherently falling apart."

Great stories about Lauren's work on her blog where we find Lauren teaching photography to the kids in Crit.





All images 2010 © Lauren Hermele

Megan Kathleen McIssac's images are timeless, her writing is unassuming, and her website is good fun. "throughout everything that has happened, i genuinely consider myself lucky and i'm not sure what else to say about it. i discovered a passion for making photographs when i was seven or eight years old and i continue to make ends meet so that i can support my travels and photography and truly live. being stubborn, i only like to shoot film and torture myself by carrying around my heavy mamiya c330 wherever i go, often by foot. currently i'm working on self publishing my first photo-book while contemplating where and how id like to travel to next."

As commonplace as paintings and sculptures of Hindu deities are, there are no photographs. Manjari intends to change this by creating a series of photographs of specific gods and godesses, with every detail included, created from scratch. Just take a look at what she achieved for Maa Laxmi. Manjari's Kickstarter campaign is already 25% fulfilled; there are plenty of rewards available so why not consider helping to fund this project and we can all go see the enormous results in a gallery near us soon!

Maa Laxmi © Manjari Sharma

"I thought that if I was gay, I couldn't have kids." El Segundo, 2009.

Another important series, this from Stefan Jora: "The Gay Families Project". Stefan is hoping to expand the project to Washington State. If you're feeling fundy, you can easily support the project here. Benefits start at only $1.