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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query aline smithson. Sort by date Show all posts

8.19.2015

ALINE SMITHSON: Monograph | Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography

Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography
Photographs by Aline Smithson
Published by the Magenta Foundation


 Fur from Daughter
Photograph © Aline Smithson

Special Edition soft-cover in a fabulous Drawer Box!

Mr. Malin from Hollywood at Home

Aline Smithson is known as a superstar among her peers. She is beloved in the photo community she so generously promotes and supports daily in her award winning journal, LENSCRATCH, she teaches workshops at the Los Angeles Center of Photography, jury's exhibitions and reviews at portfolio reviews all around the country – while working full-time on her own photography career.

Now, the Magenta Foundation is publishing Aline Smithson's first monograph, Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography, portrait photographs spanning over twenty years. A gorgeous must-have photography book, with a foreword by Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator at the Griffin Museum of Photography; an introduction by Karen Sinsheimer, Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and some very interesting, revealing text from the photographer about her photographic series, opens each chapter.



I have always been partial to Aline Smithson's black and white photographs of her family with her children at various ages and stages. I was interested to learn she was inspired by some of my favorite photographers. She writes "...I was drawn to the humanity of the early portraits of Keith Carter, captured near his home in Beaumont, Texas; I was fascinated with the intimacy Diane Arbus was able to create with strangers; and I was affected by Matt Mahurin’s moody and gestural images, which inspired me to print darker and take risks in the darkroom."

Night Light from Daughter
Photograph © Aline Smithson

Brothers
Photograph © Aline Smithson

Venus Rising from Inside Out
Photograph © Aline Smithson

Hardcover
11" × 12"
216 pages with foldout section
55 B&W photographs and 75 colour photographs
Full colour throughout and gilded edges
ISBN 978-1-926856-06-3

Special Edition soft-touch cover book,
inside of a high-gloss, foil stamped
drawer box with a pull-tab

$60 (book)
$150 (special edition book in box)
$300 (special edition book in box, with print)
Self + Others: Portrait As Autobiography
Photographs by Aline Smithson


"Aline Smithson Talks To Elizabeth Avedon" 

5.21.2014

ALINE SMITHSON: The Interview

Arrangement in Green and Black #2
Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother © Aline Smithson 

Arrangement in Green and Black #17
Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother  © Aline Smithson  

Arrangement in Green and Black #1
Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother © Aline Smithson  

Elizabeth Avedon: What sparked the idea for your series, Arrangement in Green and Black?

Aline Smithson: The idea was sparked when I came across a small print of Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother by James McNeil Whistler at a garage sale.  Whistler has always been one of my favorite painters. Revisiting the composition again made me ponder the possibilities of using it in a photographic series. Within an hour, at two other garage sales, I happened upon a leopard coat and hat,a leopard fabric, a cat painting and a chair that was similar to the one in the painting...and I knew it was a sign to proceed.

My patient 85 year-old mother posed in over 20 ensembles, but unfortunately passed away before seeing the finished series. I am grateful for her sense of humor and the time this series allowed us to be together. 

 EA: Which of the 21 was the first?

AS: The first was the leopard coat and hat and the cat painting. I immediately loved the result and it set my imagination on fire.  I would lie awake at night thinking of combinations and scenarios. I was also working on a couple of other series at the same time. It was a period of immense creativity. 
 

Fur © Aline Smithson  

Lucy with Mountains from Revisiting Beauty © Aline Smithson
As seen in the 2014 PDN Photo Annual 

I first met ALINE SMITHSON several years ago while I was a reviewer for CENTER's annual Review Santa Fe. I was impressed with all of her work using various subjects and styles. I fell in love with her mysterious black and white series, Inside/Out, and Daughter, a photographic journey from childhood to adolescent to adulthood of her daughter Charlotte; and many of her photographs incorporating her family on their yearly vacations on a lake. 

After a career as a New York Fashion Editor, working along side the greats of fashion photography, including Horst, Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, and Bert Stern, ALINE SMITHSON discovered the family Rolleiflex and never looked back. She has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Center of Fine Art Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, the Lishui Festival in China, the Tagomago Gallery in Barcelona and Paris, and the Wallspace Gallery in Seattle and Santa Barbara. And her latest exhibition, Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother, opened at the Davis Orton Gallery in Hudson New York last week.

Aline radiates her own personal power - she is known as a superstar among her peers. While working full-time on her own photography career, she generously promotes and supports the work of mid-career and emerging photographers daily on her award winning journal, LENSCRATCH; as well as giving workshops at the Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) and jurying exhibitions and portfolio reviews around the country. 

I spoke with Aline recently about her ongoing work projects, her upcoming exhibition and her collaboration with her mother. Read our full Interview on L'Oeil de la Photography here.

EXHIBITION
Photographs by Aline Smithson
Arrangement in Gray and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother
May 16 - June 22, 2014
Davis Orton Gallery
114 Warren Street Hudson, NY 12534 USA
 
Also showing:
Photographs by Meg Birnbaum, Sisters of the Commonwealth
 

2.08.2015

ALINE SMITHSON: And the Magenta Foundation Kickstarter Campaign!



Award winning photographer Aline Smithson generously promotes and supports the work of other photographers and photo professionals daily on her award winning journal, LENSCRATCH; as well as giving workshops at the Los Angeles Center of Photography and jurying exhibitions and portfolio reviews around the country. Now Smithson's first monograph, a twenty-year retrospective of her portrait work, Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography, will be published by The Magenta Foundation this Fall.


"I have always felt that the act of creating a portrait is equally a reflection of the artist and the sitter. I tend to work with people I know--family, friends, and neighbors, so that the process is in fact, autobiographical.  I am not only telling their story, but also telling my own. I still shoot film and work for the most part, with a mid century Rolleiflex. I like the slowed down nature of shooting film and the sense of history and methodology it brings to my art making." – Aline Smithson



I am thrilled to announce the Kickstarter campaign created to raise funds for the publication of award-winning photographer Aline Smithson's first monograph, Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography, by the Magenta Foundation in the Fall of 2015.

"This will be the first published monograph of Aline Smithson's portrait photographs spanning over twenty years. Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography is an almost 20 year culmination of portrait photographs captured by award-winning photographer Aline Smithson. Beginning with her early forays into black and white work, produced as darkroom silver gelatin prints, she photographed the world around her considering the poignancy of childhood and the pathos of aging and relationships. The book continues with her hand painted photographs featuring her defining series, Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother, where she combines humor and family to create a universal expression of motherhood. The book is completed by her color projects that revisit beauty, the essence of childhood, and an examination of created realities. Aline brings a background in painting and fashion to her images, but at the heart of her work is her ability to recognize the inner self of her subjects. The photographer considers all her portraits a reflection of herself and the stories she wants to tell, and in that way, she has created a visual language that is her own unique autobiography." –The Magenta Foundation



"Hello friends! I am so excited to announce my first monograph, Self and Others: Portrait as Autobiography, and share my Kickstarter campaign created to raise funds for publication. The book will be published by the Magenta Foundation in Fall of 2015. I could really use your support to make this book a reality." Watch the Kickstarter video here



Read about Aline Smithson's series, Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother, here on L'Oeil de la Photography.

1.01.2010

ALINE SMITHSON: Lenscratch Favorites


Shadows and Stains series
H
and painted silver gelatin print (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

Shadows and Stains series
H
and painted silver gelatin print (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

from "My favorites from the yearly vacation at the lake..."
Lenscratch (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

from "My favorites from the yearly vacation at the lake..."
Lenscratch (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

Henry from "My favorites from the yearly vacation at the lake..."
Lenscratch (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

SHADOWS AND STAINS series: "Shot with a toy camera (Diana), I set out to deconstruct images, overlap or cut my negatives, add thoughts that never get said out loud, add text and texture through traditional methods in the darkroom, add washes of oil paint to the surface, and discard the idea of making the perfect print. I want the shadows and stains of my photographic fingerprints as evidence that I was there, in a dark room." –Aline Smithson

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In December, Photographer Aline Smithson posted the following message on her blog LENSCRATCH: "Send me your favorite photograph of 2009 (that you have taken) and I will post it on New Year's Day." Readers sent images from as far away as India, Burma, Ireland, and Hungary, as well as many from here at home. The following are only a few of the almost 100 images posted:

Finokalia (Φινοκαλιά), Crete
Photograph (c) Phil Bebbinton /All Rights Reserved

Los Angeles, CA
Photograph (c) Maura Brennan /All Rights Reserved

10.14.2009

ALINE SMITHSON: Unexpected

Copyright (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

Copyright (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

Copyright (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

I look to tell stories that are familiar, yet unexpected. The poignancy of childhood, aging, relationships, family, and moments of introspection or contemplation continue to draw my interest.

After a career as a New York Fashion Editor, working along side the greats of fashion photography, including Horst, Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort, and Bert Stern, ALINE SMITHSON discovered the family Rolleiflex and never looked back. She has exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Oswald Gallery, and Wallspace Gallery in Seattle. Aline has been Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine and curated a number of exhibitions for galleries and on-line magazines. She was nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award in 2008 and 2009 and the Santa Fe Prize for Photography in 2009 by the Santa Fe Center for Photography.

Smithson's series INSIDE/OUT explores the human experience–motherhood, puberty, childhood, work, aging, death, loss–by using masks to create a more universal image and explore what part of a person comes through the mask, what they can and care to project
. Plates To Pixels Interview

Aline Smithson WEBSITE
Aline Smithson's Photography blog: LENSCRATCH

4.11.2010

ALINE SMITHSON: Photographing Family

Copyright (c) Aline Smithson


Copyright (c) Aline Smithson

To create the series Arrangement in Green and Black: Portrait of the Photographer's Mother, Aline Smithson took photographs of her 85-year-old mother combining traditional photography techniques with hand painted color. The inspiration for the series began when she found a small print of Whistler's painting Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother, at a neighborhood garage sale. The same weekend she found a leopard coat and hat, a 1950s cat painting, and what looked like the exact chair from the Whistler painting. "That started me thinking about the idea of portraiture, the strong compositional relationships going on within Whistler's painting, and the evocative nature of unassuming details," says Smithson. 


The Griffin Museum of Photography  
April 7 - May 16, 2010

Arrangement In Green And Black

 PORTRAIT OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S MOTHER
The Atelier Gallery, 395 Main Street, Stoneham, MA

9.29.2010

ALINE SMITHSON: collect.give

Imagine
Photograph (c) Aline Smithson /All Rights Reserved

collect.give
a limited edition by photographer Aline Smithson
edition of 25 - print price of $40
100% of the proceeds go to the organization Change The Truth


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CHANGE THE TRUTH (CTT), founded by photographer, Gloria Baker Feinstein, supports St. Mary Kevin Orphange Motherhood in Uganda. CTT provides shelter, food, security, clothing, medicine, love, access to education and training in vocational skills to children from Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Sudan, Chad and Niger. For children abandoned, abused, mistreated or who have lost their families to war, CHANGE THE TRUTH provides hope and a future: www.changethetruth.org

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After a career as a fashion editor, Aline Smithson now works in Los Angeles. Her photography has been featured in numerous publications and she is represented by galleries in the U.S. and Europe. Though she was nominated for The Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award in 2008 and 2009 and for The Santa Fe Prize in Photography in 2009 by Center, she considers her children her greatest achievement. Smithson's work is coming out in the October issues of Fraction, Visura, and Rangefinder. Read more about Aline here and view her blog Lenscratch.

8.07.2011

TOM CHAMBERS: Dreaming In Reverse / Soñando Hacia Atrás

Presumptuous Guests / Invitados Presuntuosos
Photograph (c) Tom Chambers

Two Chairs / Dos Sillas
Photograph (c) Tom Chambers

Stuck In The Key Of C / Atrapado en la Tecla de C
Photograph (c) Tom Chambers

Glass Flower / Flor de Vidrio Photograph (c) Tom Chambers

"Twenty-five years ago I traveled freely throughout the Mexican countryside where I relished a warm, welcoming, and slow-paced style of living. I was heartened by the physical beauty of the landscape and the simple, pure lifestyles shared by both the Hispanic and indigenous people of Mexico. A sense of spirituality and magic were imbedded in their religious practices, crafts, art, dance, and literature...Sensing that little time remains to photograph the beauty of Mexico, I have created the series, Dreaming In Reverse, to express both my concern for cultural loss, as well as my appreciation for the inherent loveliness of Mexican life. Employing Magic Realism, an art genre used in the early twentieth century in Mexico, I have attempted to create images of Mexico which seem true and believable, but also perhaps improbable."– Photographer Tom Chambers

photo-eye Editions just released a portfolio of twelve pigment ink prints from this series, Dreaming In Reverse, housed in an archival anodized aluminum box is published in a limited edition of thirty with two artist’s and two printer’s proofs. The prints were produced with archival pigment inks printed on hahnemühle photo rag baryta.

Dreaming In Reverse / Soñando Hacia Atrás
Photographs by Tom Chambers

August 5 - September 25

photo-eye Gallery, Santa Fe

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States Puzzle
Photograph (c) Aline Smithson


"We live in a world full of technical distractions. I see my children gathered around their computers as though it’s a summer campfire, faces aglow, as they peer into a world of friends and fantasy, participating in a new forms of entertainment that further remove them from the childhood that I experienced...

...And it’s because of this that I have been looking at bookshelves and untouched childhood pursuits with a new eye. With great sadness, I realize that these objects will someday be obsolete, at least in their current incarnations. And like a curator of antiquities, I see them now as beautiful objects to be admired and preserved, if only on film."—Aline Smithson


10.09.2010

CRITICAL EXPOSURE: Auction Pre-Preview

Ismaila Badji and Jumpex, 2008
Photographs (c) Jason Florio/All rights reserved
Jason Florio Website

10.08.11 #3 Mama C, Matunuck, RI
edition 1/15 8x10" archival pigment print on 8.5x11 paper
Copyright © 2010 Joni Sternbach / All rights reserved
Joni Sternbach Website

Central Park, 2009
Photograph (c) Aline Smithson
/All Rights Reserved
Aline Smithson Website

Glistening
Photograph (c) Marcia Schulman Martin/All rights reserved
Marcia Schulman Martin Website

Hosta Flower Among Leaves
Photograph (c) Russ Martin/All rights reserved
Russ Martin Website

Paolo Gavanelli as Rigoletti in the Opera Rigoletti
Photograph (c) John F. Martin
/All Rights Reserved

John F. Martin Website

PICTURE EQUALITY 2010 Silent Auction + Fundraiser

SILENT AUCTION: Picture Equality: An Evening of Empowerment Through Photography The 3rd Annual Silent Auction will benefit low-income youth by providing cameras and training in photography so that students can become effective advocates for school reform and social change. Photographers Damon Winter, Ami Vitale, Joni Sternbach, Jason Florio, John F. Martin, Aline Smithson, Russ Martin, and Ed Kashi, as well as many more from National Geographic, Getty Images, and VII Photo Agency, have donated images for sale. (stay posted as the list of photographers keeps growing)
TICKETS
October 21st, 2010, 6:30-8:30pm
Atrium of the DLA Piper Building
500 8th St. NW at Gallery Place, Washington D.C.

1.18.2014

LENSCRATCH: Mixtape by Aline Smithson

Photograph © Jerry Atnip

I've been L E N S C R A T C H E D  by the remarkable ALINE SMITHSON. L E N S C R A T C H is considered one of the 10 Photography-related blogs you should be reading by Source Review, Wired.com, Rangefinder and InStyle Magazine. I'm honored to be included in Smithson's Mixtapes, profiling many distinguished professionals in the fine art photography world.

Aline writes: "Constructing today’s MIXTAPE was incredibly exciting–I learned in-depth about a friend and design icon who has traversed a remarkable photographic terrain, creating a legacy for excellence and creativity. Elizabeth Avedon's blog  is a go-to destination for photographers, bringing her unique perspective to her observations and posts.  I first met Elizabeth Avedon when she reviewed my work at Review Santa Fe. I had no idea what to expect, but it turned out that our twenty minutes was my favorite of the event. She was warm, funny, engaging, and encouraging.  We kept in touch and several years later, when I was exhibiting in New York, she attended my opening. It was a reflection of the kind of person she is, someone who makes the extra effort to support, encourage, and educate. It was great to reunite with her in Chicago at the Filter Photo Festival this past fall."

"Elizabeth carries a lifetime of creative seeing, that combined with her exposure to the the greats of design and photography, add up to a remarkable ability to make her mark on all aspects of design that surround the photograph. Her down-to-earth generosity and unflagging enthusiasm for all things photographic make her a very special member of our community." 

L E N S C R A T C H

12.26.2015

BEST PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS of 2015....and Some Honorable Mentions

 click on images to enlarge
FACING CHANGE: DOCUMENTING AMERICA a collection of images by award-­winning photographers Maggie Steber, Donna Ferrato, Carlos Javier Ortiz, David Burnett, Danny Wilcox Frazier, Stanley Greene, Andrew Lichtenstein, Darcy Padilla and Lucian Perkins, authored by Leah Bendavid-Val. It includes a wealth of images and important documentary stories that tell the story of today’s America....www.facingchangeusa.org/book

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 Bil. Sandusky, Ohio. Photograph Alec Soth

SONGBOOK by Alec Soth. Known for his haunting portraits of solitary Americans in Sleeping by the Mississippi and Broken Manual, Alec Soth has recently turned his lens toward community life in the country read more here.
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Mrs. Jefferson, Fort Scott, Kansas, 1950
Photograph by Gordon Parks 

GORDON PARKS: BACK TO FORT SCOTT by Karen Hass. Photographs by Gordon Parks (Steidl). The first African American photographer to be hired full time by Life magazine, Gordon Parks was often sent on assignments involving social issues that his white colleagues were not asked to cover. In 1950 he returned on one such assignment to his hometown of Fort Scott in southeastern Kansas: he was to provide photographs for a piece on segregated schools and their impact on black children...read more here
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DETROIT: UNBROKEN DOWN Photographs: Dave Jordano; Text by Nancy Watson Barr, Dawoud Bey and Sharon Zukin (powerHouse Books). Dave Jordano returned to his hometown of Detroit to document the people who still live in what has become one of the country’s most economically challenging cities....read more here

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CHARTH VADER Photographs by Ashly Stohl. Follow the journey of the the photographer's visually impaired son, Charth Vader, as he battles his way through childhood. Profits from this book benefit the Vision Center at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, published by Peanut Press.

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THE PHONE BOOK by Robert Herman (Schiffer). Known for his award winning street photography, Herman used Hipstamatic's square format to create this unique collection of iPhone photographs made while traveling across the world. The New York Times Review here

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Black #14, as seen at The Marlborough Gallery, 2011


POULTRY SUITE: Photographs by Jean Pagliuso (Hirmer Publications). Fashion photographer Jean Pagliuso created an homage to her childhood in Southern California, where she helped her father breed and show Bantam Cochins. POULTRY SUITE showcases more than twenty breeds of chickens—from Sebrights to Spangled Hamburgs—as they have never before been seen. 

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"Shrouds/Sudarios" haunting images of women either in agony or ecstasy—the viewer doesn’t know which until he learns that these women were forced to witness the torture of their loved ones––are printed on linen in an effect that resembles the Shroud of Turin.

"Drifting Away/Rio Abajo" images of artifacts of the hundreds of people who have “disappeared" without a trace in Columbia ––a shirt, a shoe, or a pair of eyeglasses–– are photographed in water and then suspended in glass.  

A tribute to the more than 250,000 
"disappeared" in Colombia...

MEMENTO MORI: TESTIMENT TO LIFE (George F. Thompson Publishing) Photographs and text by Columbian photographer Erika Diettes. With an Interview by Anne Wilkes Tucker. Essay by Ileana Diéguez. "MEMENTO MORI: Testament to Life" presents four bodies of work in two volumes in a transparent slipcase. The first volume contains installation shots of the work in cathedrals, churches, museums, exhibitions, and memorials in Latin America, Europe, Australia, and the United States. The second volume contains the plates of the three series: Drifting Away/Rio Abajo, Relics/Relicarios, Shrouds/Sudarios.
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 Photograph by Ming Murray Smith


TIMELESS: PHOTOGRAPHS BY KAMOINGE Edited by Anthony Barboza and Herb Robinson, Coedited by Vincent Alabiso, Foreword by Quincy Troup (Schiffer). Kamoinge is the oldest collaborative group of photographers in the nation, a pioneering Photographic Collective of NY-based African-American Photographers founded in 1963 at the height of the American Civil Rights Movement. Roy DeCarava was their first Director. To commemorate it’s 50th year, this book includes over 280 stunning photos interspersed with insights and thoughts from Kamoinge’s 30 members, who include many of the nation’s most acclaimed photographers; Anthony Barboza, Adger W. Cowans, Salimah Ali, Mark Lee Blackshear, Spencer Anthony Burnett, Gerald Cyrus, C. Daniel Dawson, Albert Fennar, Collette Fournier, Russell K. Frederick, Jerry Jack, Wayne Lawrence, Ming Murray Smith, Toni Parks, John Pinderhughes, Radcliffe Roye, Herbert Randall, Eli Reed, Herb Robinson, June DeLairre Truesdale, Jamel Shabazz, Frank Stewart, Shawn Walker, Budd Williams.

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INDECENT EXPOSURES: Eadweard Muybridge's "Animal Locomotion” Nudes" by Sarah Gordon (Yale University Press). Photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) presented his iconic Animal Locomotion series in 1887. He made thousands of photographs of humans and animals in motion, including more than 300 plates of nude men and women engaged in activities such as swinging a baseball bat, playing leapfrog, and performing housework—an astonishing fact given the period’s standards of propriety. This book includes many lesser-known photographs published for the first time.

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JULIA MARGARET CAMERON: Photographs to Electrify You with Delight and Startle the World by Curator Marta Weiss (MACK Books). Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–79) was one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century. Criticized in her lifetime for her unconventional techniques, she is now celebrated as a pioneering portraitist. 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of her first museum exhibition – the only one in her lifetime – held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1865. Drawing on the V&A’s significant collection, which includes photographs acquired directly from Cameron and letters she wrote to the museum’s founding director, Curator Marta Weiss tells the story of Cameron’s artistic development. She presents, for the first time, a group of photographs recently revealed to have belonged to Cameron’s friend and mentor the artist G.F. Watts. This discovery sheds light on previously unacknowledged aspects of Cameron’s experimental approach.
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 A is for Angels


In her new book, ALPHABET by Debbie Fleming Caffery (Fall Line Press), inspired by her grandchildren created a children’s book disguised as an art book (or vice versa). Caffery, one of my favorite photographers, extraordinary photographs are full of shadows and secrets. In this book she chose 26 black and white photographs of her work to illustrate the letters of the alphabet; creating some new images for the book, while pulling others from her extensive archive. This collection will warm both your eye and your heart. 

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 Fur from Daughter
Photograph © Aline Smithson

SELF + OTHERS: PORTRAIT AS AUTOBIOGRAPHY Photographs by Aline Smithson (Magenta Foundation) Aline Smithson's first monograph includes photographs spanning over twenty years. A gorgeous must-have photography book, with a foreword by Paula Tognarelli, Executive Director and Curator at the Griffin Museum of Photography; an introduction by Karen Sinsheimer, Curator of Photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art; and some very interesting, revealing text from the photographer about her photographic series, opens each chapter.

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Joni Sternbach/Courtesy of Rick Wester Fine Art

Joni Sternbach: Surf Site Tin Type (Damiani) texts by noted photo critic and historian Lyle Rexer, curator April M. Watson, and Chris Malloy and Johnny Abegg, both well-known surfers and filmmakers. Over the past decade Brooklyn-based photographer Joni Sternbach has traveled around the world, creating tintype portraits of contemporary surfers using the nineteenth-century wet-plate collodion process. Stunning in their detail, these one-of-a-kind images evoke the romance and adventure of surfing, and the bold individualism of the men and women who live to ride the waves. 

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THE WATCHERS: Photographs by Haley Morris-Cafiero, Text by Amanda de Cadenet (The Magenta Foundation). Haley Morris-Cafiero has travelled the world to capture how people judge one another. Working with an assistant, she photographs herself in various locations being leered at, laughed at or ignored by people on the street. Each frame is chosen based on the strangers in the background, if they have a critical or questioning look, or if there is a gesture in their body language. By reversing the gaze back on the strangers, the collection begins a conversation about nonverbal interaction and the view society has on body image.

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EVERY BREATHE WE DREW: Photographs by Jess T. Dugan; Text by curator Amy Galpin; interview by Dawoud Bey, (Daylight Books). Over the past decade, Jess T. Dugan (born 1986) has created intimate portraits that engage with issues of identity, sexuality, gender and community. Her first book, Every Breath We Drew, compiles color portraits of the artist and others….read more here

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Honorable Mentions


Irving Penn "Beyond Beauty” by Curator Merry A. Foresta (Yale University Press). Drawing from the extensive holdings of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, including a major gift from The Irving Penn Foundation, this magnificent catalogue compiles 161 of Penn’s iconic images, including a number of unpublished works.
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That Day: Pictures in the American West. Photographs by Laura Wilson; Essay by Curator John Rohrbach (Yale University Press). Wilson’s subjects range from legendary West Texas cattle ranches to impoverished Plains Indian reservations to lavish border-town cotillions. Also featured are compelling portraits of artists who are associated with the region, including Donald Judd, Ed Ruscha, and Sam Shepard.
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COSPLAY IN AMERICA, Volume 2 by Ejen Chuang. Cosplay in America V2 takes a reader on a visual journey through the culture of cosplay in the United States. Photographer Ejen Chuang spent two years visiting 20 cities to gather images for this book... read more here

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FINDING HOME: SHELTER DOGS AND THEIR STORIES by Traer Scott (Princeton Architectural Press). Scott began photographing these dogs in 2005 as a volunteer at animal shelters. Her first book, Shelter Dogs, was a runaway success, and in this follow-up, Scott introduces a new collection of canine subjects, each with indomitable character and spirit: