These images are from different bodies of work by the photographer Pieter Hugo. Hugo photographs exclusively in africa with subject matter covering many different aspects of cultural and societal life in africa. the first two images are from his series Nollywood, where he photographs different characters from movie sets. Nollywood is apparently the the third largest film industry (right behind bollywood), and is extremely violent and brutal. The third image ios from the series permanent error where he documents a dump site a discarded technological waste from the west. The fourth image is from a series of portraits of albino africans; apparently african albinos are seen as outcast, and fear for their lives due to a black market niche were parts of an albino are sold to certain african medicine men and witch-doctors. The last images is from a series that depicts hyena handlers, and how they travel from town to town entertaining crowds.

I find Hugo's photography to be not only technically strong and artistic, but extremely fascinating as well. enough said, his work speaks for itself. check him out here www.pieterhugo.com

Rodney Smith - Ilya Tetelman

Rodney Smith is a celebrated fashion and art photographer. His career began with a fellowship he received to spend time in Jerusalem. Upon his return, he had a photo book published from his journeys. He was offered to lecture on photography at numerous Universities including Ivy Leagues like Columbia. He refused all and traveled the world instead, afterwards returning to Yale University to get a degree in Divinity.

Rodney Smith has also since become a staple in fashion photography. With his imaginative and almost mythical photographic style, he has been commission by the top publisher and advertisers. The photo in the middle of the set, with a pyramid shape created from umbrella wielding fashionables was a commissioned work for The New York Times, and was taken on a floating barge in the waters surrounding New York City. He has won 75 awards and is collected and exhibited around the world.

Additional work by Paul Graham

Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan is a Seattle based Photographer. He is known largely for his large scale work on mass consumption, waste and garbage in this country. I chose this series called Midway. To me they were so powerful, and gets the point across how all our trash effect the lives of animals.

"These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September, 2009, on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world's most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent."

His other works are Running the Numbers and Running the Numbers 2, and In Katrina's Wake.

Chris Engman plays with how the photograph flattens 3 dimensional space into 2 dimensional space. Working in a sculptural manner Engman creates witty photographs that play with ideas of displacement and the passage of time.

chad

Alex Maclean

Alex Maclean
http://www.alexmaclean.com/

Alex Maclean is almost exclusively an aerial photographer but that is exactly why I'm drawn to his formal style. It is also exclusively of mad made objects which is exactly the same type of "New Topographics" feel that I find myself being interested in.

~Mike H.

Michael Froio

The softness, yet harshness of contrast gives these photographs such a dreamlike emotion. The deep texture and play with light dances through the black, gray and white tonal values becoming almost silver. His technical ability to manipulate the scene is amazing. I love his use of a slow shutter speed even in a high light situation, such as his Delaware River photographs. Michael is a local photographer who studied and now teaches at Drexel University. He was awarded a travel grant in 2007 to photograph the Pennsylvania Railroad and the nearby historic towns.

Kristina

http://michaelfroio.com/home.html

I enjoy the "books" of Paul Graham. They are short collections of interesting photographs telling a story in much the same way a TV news network might. Of particular interest to me is his work on Northern Ireland, Troubled Land.
Ed Canning

Gyula Halász, aka Brassai

Gyula Halász, aka Brassai (b) Brasso, Transylvania, 1899 - 1984

Sculptor, photographer and filmmaker who rose to international fame in France in the 20th century. In 1924, Brassai moved to Paris, took a job as a journalist. His love of the city, whose streets he often wandered late at night, led to photography.

He first used it to supplement some of his articles for more money, but rapidly explored the city through this medium, in which he was tutored by his fellow Hungarian Andre Kertesz. He later wrote that he used photography "in order to capture the beauty of streets and gardens in the rain and fog, and to capture Paris by night."



Brassaï captured the essence of the city in his photographs, published as his first collection in 1933 book entitled "Paris de nuit (Paris by Night)". In addition to photos of the seedier side of Paris, Brassai portrayed scenes from the life of the city's high society, its intellectuals, its ballet, and the grand operas. Brassai photographed many of his artist friends, including Dali, Picasso, Matisse and several prominent writers of his time.



Brassaï continued to earn a living with commercial work, also taking photographs for Harper’s Bazaar. In 1948 he had a one-man show at MOMA, which traveled to George Eastman House and the Art Institute of Chicagago. In 1956, his fim “As long as there will be animals” won "Most Original Film" at Cannes. After 1961, Brassaï concentrated on sculpting in stone and bronze.

The copyright representative for the Estate, Réunion des Musées Nationaux (RMN), manages more than 1,400 high-resolution scans of his work.









Bill Brandt, Brassai and Ansel Adams