Architectural spaces
as a study in contrasts

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Leibovitz's perspective
infuses 'American Music'

The Austin Museum of Art exhibit, "American Music" — based on Annie Leibovitz's book of the same name — takes the photographer full circle back to her early work with musicians while combining her eye for revealing the personality of celebrities with her skills as an artist.

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'Uncommon' America
relevant decades later

Aperture's reissue of The Complete Works by Stephen Shore pleases with excellent new texts and reproductions of interesting ancillary works, and the book also allows the core material — over twice as many images as the first version — to act its graceful, subtle magic.

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Horrors of Bhopal put
into human perspective

The despair wrought by the worst industrial chemical disaster in human history is on display in Raghu Rai and Maude Dorr's exhibit at Seattle's Art/Not Gallery.

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'Diane Arbus Revelations' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York runs through 30 May 2005. [Copyright © 2005 Bruno J. Navarro]

'Revelations' provides
a broad view of Arbus

Along with actual prints, the exhibit makes use of pages from Arbus's notebooks, letters and even the contents of her study. It's interesting to see her influences from the books she had on her shelves and the photographs of other photographers that she had displayed where she lived and worked.

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Heavy metal and hair
converge at full speed

All style, all fun. No inhibitions, no haircuts. David Yellen's "Too Fast For Love" portrays a cultural moment that keeps on living: heavy metal. Yellen's portraits of fans, made over the course of three months in the summer of 2000, captures the eccentricities of this subculture. Photographed typologically and bound in an intimately-sized book, Yellen presents a dramatic cast of characters.

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Watanabe preserves life
in portraits, observations

AUSTIN, Texas (Fotophile.com) — Hiroshi Watanbe's exhibit of monochrome photographs displays an expert presentation of subtle beauty and exquisite prints.

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'Acts of Charity' captures
how the other half gives

A subtle sense of irony and a knack for telling detail allows Mark Peterson to illustrate in "Acts of Charity" the concept of noblesse oblige and the idea that it takes money to make money as they co-exist in the high-powered world of upscale giving. Set amid the playground of the rich and famous, Peterson's photographs provide a peek at how the other half gives.

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An American perspective
of a simpler time abroad

NEW YORK (Fotophile.com) — Youthful exuberance and a healthy degree of innocence infuse much of Joel Meyerowitz's "Work from the Sixties," an exhibit highlighting the B&W and color photography from the perspective of an American in his 20s traveling through Europe.

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Taylor-Wood takes threefold,
theatrical views of transience

NEW YORK (Fotophile.com) — "Sorrow, Suspension, Ascension," Sam Taylor-Wood's third solo show at Matthew Marks Gallery, brings her evolved sense of theatrics to the forefront with striking imagery that makes passing allusions to the transience of life, mourning and, ultimately, hope.

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Arctic refuge photos evoke
concept of national treasure

NEW YORK (Fotophile.com) — It's rare that something so straightforward and beautiful resonantes with such political and vaguely unsettling overtones, but Subhankar Banerjee's photographs of the contentious Artctic National Wildlife Refuge manages to do all of that.

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Pin-up grrrls craft version
of new, stylized sexuality

Book: 'SuicideGirls' by Missy Suicide, Feral House, 156 pages, hardcover

Imagine the girls your mother warned you about — then picture them resplendent with tattoos, piercings and enough attitude to make most matriarchs swoon with repressed jealousy. That's the world Missy Suicide has created in "SuicideGirls," the book version of the wildly successful and wicked Web site featuring the indie sexuality of alterno-divas.

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Von Unwerth takes
decadent 'Revenge'

Book: 'Revenge' by Ellen von Unwerth, Twins Palms Publishers, 270 pages, hardcover

Deliciously decadent, Ellen von Unwerth's latest work has all the trappings of a classic, highly stylized tale of lasciviousness and a study in form, sexuality and society — albeit one tucked away behind the velvet curtain of propriety.

Titillating yet never prurient, "Revenge" depicts the erotic journeys of three young women who arrive for a respite at a rural manor. Instead, what follows is a series of sexually charged S&M scenes of the women as they become entagled with the Baroness (think "Rocky Horror Picture Show" with a stunning older woman in the antagonist role), her chauffer and her stable boy.

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Photoshop 7.0 is a nod
to new digital realities

Software: Adobe Photoshop 7.0

It's finally here.

Adobe Photoshop, the single piece of software that's the reason photographers overwhelmingly use Macintosh computers, is now compatible with Mac OS X. CONTINUED

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Making multiple myths
in suburbian settings

Exhibit: Gregory Crewdon at Site Santa Fe — Feb. 10 through May 27, 2001.

Brooklyn-born Gregory Crewdon, in selections from two bodies of work, depicts a strange confluence of nature, suburbia and humanity by creating fantasy scenarios that speak to the underlying forces of modern American life. What drives the work's relevance is the underlying element of absurdity in its portrayals of our conventions. CONTINUED

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Clinton's presidency
at point-blank range

Exhibit: 'The Clinton White House' by Bob McNeely at the Leica Gallery, New York — June 30 through Aug. 26, 2000.

In his capacity as chief White House photographer from 1992 through 1998, Bob McNeely shadowed President Clinton in quiet personal moments and campaign strategy sessions, at historic meetings with heads of state and preparing for on-air debates. Through it all, McNeely manages to capture aspects of the president's private and public moments with stateliness and intimacy. Most importantly, however, is McNeely's approach as a kind a Clinton biographer. CONTINUED

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A disturbing view
of race and revenge

Exhibit: 'Without Sanctuary: Photographs and Postcards of Lynching in America,' a collection by James Allen at The New-York Historical Society, New York. — through Aug. 13, 2000.

The horrifying images of lynching victims — as snapshots and souveniers throughout the early 1900s — at the New-York Historical Society exhibit stand as evidence of mob vengeance, racism and a dark side of American history. CONTINUED

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Florida as a fragile
mosiac of cultures

Book: From the Sunshine State: Photographs of Florida by Alex Webb | U.K

The images here exist as a record of the interlocking aspects of life in Florida that exist side by side but never really mix. From Guatemalan immigrants who labor into the night to the tourists who flock to the fantasy lands of Disney World, from the poor rural families often left out of the bigger picture to the retirees who adopt the balmy Caribbean weather as their own, Webb's images create social commentary within a framework of beauty. His signature use of saturated colors and strong vertical lines place people within a context they have helped create.

A leisure fisherman on a bridge, a pelican in mid-air behind him. A man, faceless, stumbles away from a storefront, a few paces from a dog stretching. Two children amuse themselves in a playpen covered by mosquito netting as an empty chair sits on the grass nearby.

At his best, Webb stands with the likes of Cartier-Bresson due to his instinct for the decisive moment. And he responds to his environment like an anthropologist with a sense of humor and empathy.