photoseries

These Photos Show the Priorities of a Photographer

Camera gear often isn't cheap, and sometimes photographers need to make touch choices when it comes to what gear to purchase and what they'll give up in order to purchase it. Photographer Barnabas Horvath decided to turn this painful reality into a photo series called "Priorities."

Portraits of People Lost in Invisible Device Screens

Photographer Eric Pickersgill has a photo project that has the Web abuzz this week. Titled "Removed," it shows what smartphones and tablets have done to our daily lives and the "intimate" moments we share with friends and family. In each scene, the devices themselves have been taken out, resulting in strange photos that force us to reflect on our interactions with technology.

Compelling Photos Document the Contents of Abandoned Suitcases from a 125-Year-Old Psychiatric Center

Willard Psychiatric Center began its life in 1869 as Willard Asylum for the Insane, closing down over 125 years later in 1995. Thousands of long-term patients passed through its doors, and when the center was shut down, it was discovered that hundreds of suitcases belonging to some of its earliest residents had been set aside and forgotten in one of the hospital's attics.

Those suitcases and their contents have been preserved, catalogued and, thanks to photographer Jon Crispin and his compelling Willard Asylum Suitcases series, now they have been photographed as well.

Parents Recreate Famous Film Scenes with Cardboard Boxes and Their Baby Boy

I don't have kids just yet, so I can't say from experience, but it seems one of the benefits of having a child is the ability to feature the adorable little guy or gal in creative photography projects. Examples abound: from Queenie Liao's wondrous naptime photos, to Nagano Toyokazu's series My Daughter Kanna.

Now, another great project has popped up on our radar. This one is called Cardboard Box Office, and it's the result of a parenting duo's creativity, an excess of packing materials and the addition of a baby boy to the family.

Henry’s Concepts: Adorable Photo Series Directed Entirely by a Two-Year-Old

In order to make a little bit of money on the side, Toronto-based portrait and wedding photographer Alex Neary does some nannying, but she probably never expected that her nannying gig would be her ticket to viral photography success.

You see, for the last year and a half, she's been looking after a ridiculously cute and creative toddler named Henry, who one day decided that he wanted to turn the camera around and photograph Alex for a change. Thus was born the adorable photo series Henry's Concepts.

54 Reasons to Love Photography in 2013

As a self-appointed pundit, I spend a fair amount of time criticizing the photography industry, but I have a little secret ... I love photography! And 2013 brought yet another year full of strange, interesting and inspiring moments in photography. Let’s go on a little journey ... in no particular order.

The Entrancing and Surreal Self-Portraiture of Kyle Thompson

There are selfies, and then there are self-portraits. Make no mistake, these are two very different things, in the same way that a photograph differentiates itself from a snapshot. So while the word 'selfie' might be in the midst of experiencing its 15 minutes of fame, it would be an injustice to call photographer Kyle Thompson's gripping self-portraits 'selfies.'

Humor: Portraits of Wet Dogs Taken Mid-Bath

Our quest to continue giving dogs the attention they deserve in the photography world continues (for the record, we don't dislike cats... we just think they get too much attention). We've had dogs shaking, dogs licking and now, for the sake of rhyming, dogs dripping.

This series is called Wet Dog, and it's a fun and funny series by pet photographer Sophie Gamand of Striking Paws Photography.

Evolution: Striking Black and White Photos of Vertebrate Skeletons by Patrick Gries

Working in concert with publisher Xavier Barral and writer/scientist Dr. Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, photographer Patrick Gries has put together a book/photo series packed full of striking black and white photographs of vertebrate skeletons -- from tiny creatures to massive elephants, his book Evolution covers a vast swath of vertebrate natural history.

Parents Keep Their Kids’ Imaginations Alive with Creative ‘Dinovember’ Project

Parents Refe and Susan Tuma aren't big on Movember, at their house November is reserved for a different tradition: Dinovember. Documented in photos on the project's Facebook page, the Tumas spend November keeping their kids' imaginations alive by convincing them that every night, their dinosaur toys come to life and get into all sorts of trouble.

Strangers: A Bizarre Series of Composite Portraits, Each Made Up of 200 Close-Ups

Photographer Pelle Cass is fond of composites. The set of so-called 'single frame time-lapses' he put together for his Selected People series has gone quite viral.

But his fondness for composite photography doesn't stop at creating overcrowded scenes, he applied the same approach to taking portraits, creating a bizarre (and perhaps a little unsettling) series of portraits called Strangers in the process.

Athletes Among Us: Pics of Professional Athletes Playing at Life

What do you do when your last photo series went viral and earned you numerous awards and accolades? Well, if you're Jordan Matter, the photographer behind the wildly popular photo series and book Dancers Among Us, you move on to the next great idea.

For him, that means taking the original idea and tweaking it a bit. First he did Dancers Among Us, now he's capturing the dedicated and passionate lives of those professional Athletes Among Us.

Liquid Jewels: Photos of Paint-Covered Balloons Milliseconds After They Pop

Back in March, we shared Swiss photographer Fabian Oefner's Black Holes series of photographs showing paint being flung outwards by a spinning drill. We told you then that Oefner's stated goal was to "harness elemental forms of natural phenomena and capture them in the most stunning way possible."

His most recent project takes another stab at that goal, this time using paint and modeling balloons to create a series of photographs he's calling Liquid Jewels.

Photos of Falling Subjects Moments from Disaster

Photographer Brad Hammonds is fascinated by a concept that he calls "emotional delay." It's the idea that no moment is truly experienced until it has already passed. In the time the moment is happening, the brain is processing it. By the time the experience comes, the moment is actually gone.

His most recent series Falling Through Space explores this concept in an interesting way, by trying to get the viewer to experience the terrifying moment in the photo while the subject himself (or herself) is still processing.

Stunning Macro Photographs of Animal Eyes

They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but in the case of Suren Manvelyan's macro photography, it's just in the eye. After his extreme close-up photos of both human and animal eyes went viral one right after the other, Manvelyan decided to continue seeking out more beauty in the eyes of animals by releasing a part two to the amazing series we shared with you back in 2011.

Photo Series Illustrates Crayon Colors by Using the Objects They’re Named After

Crayola Crayons -- the tools with which many a toddler has decorated many a refrigerator door -- all have interesting real-world names. Some strange colors like 'Flesh' have been understandably renamed. But many equally interesting colors have remained staples in the coloring world, and it's these colors that photographer Daniel Seung Lee and art director Dawn Kim set out to capture in their collaborative series Crayola Theory.

Photos of New York City Inside the Grand Canyon Contrast Emptiness and Density

At the end of 2012, Swiss photographer Gus Petro took a trip to the United States, and was met with a sharp dichotomy. When he visited New York City, he found density in all its glory. But when he followed that up with a trip to the Grand Canyon, he was struck by the sheer emptiness of it.

This led to a project dubbed Empty, Dense, Merge, and the photos below represent the final third of that triad.

Still Life Photos that Combine Stark White Scenes with Just a Touch of Color

For the most part, Dutch photographer Arjan Benning specializes in still life photography. Crafting strange scenes for advertising agencies, museums, magazines and cultural institutions worldwide, he tries to walk "the fine line between authenticity and amazement."

His series Ice Age does this by juxtaposing white, domestic, cluttered scenes -- which in and of themselves are sometimes quite strange -- with a touch of color.

Photos of Diet Wiegman’s Mind-Blowing Shadow Sculptures

Voted "The Most Brilliant Artist of the Netherlands" in 2009, Dutch artist Diet Wiegman is a master of his craft. But of all the amazing creations he has to his name, his work with light and shadow is most breathtaking. Using garbage, pieces of glass and other rubble, he creates a sculpture that, with the help of a light source, projects a beautiful image onto a wall.

It’s Hardly Noticable: Photographs That Represent the Feeling of Anxiety

Photographer John William Keedy has had to deal with an anxiety disorder for some nine years now. Never feeling like he quite fit in, and at times so nervous around crowds that he would only go to the grocery store when he was certain it was empty, he's intimately familiar with the type of neurotic behavior a condition like his can encourage.

His photo series It's Hardly Noticeable is an exploration of these neurotic, obsessive and strange behaviors that manifest as part of anxiety-based mental disorders.

Photos of Alaskan Hunting Cabins Taken in Mid-Summer and Mid-Winter

When Seattle-based photographer Eirik Johnson went to photograph the hunting cabins of the Iñupiat people of Barrow, Alaska, he found something more than he expected. The resulting summer and winter combination series, dubbed Barrow Cabins, turned into "a meditation on the passage of time."

Out With the Old, In With the New: Photos that Show the Modernization of China

Photographer Christopher Domakis has photographed both sides of the urban coin in China. Through two unrelated photo series, Hutong and Microcosm, he has managed to juxtapose the quiet closeness of the narrow Hutong alley neighborhoods of Beijing with the hustle and bustle of the rapidly growing urban developments in many of China's biggest cities.

AMMO: Cross Section Photos of Bullets

In October of 2012, LA-based photographer Sabine Pearlman found herself ensconced in a Swiss WWII bunker photographing 900 different "specimens" of cross sectioned ammunition. Her resulting photo series, AMMO, shows the beauty and craftsmanship that went into creating these destructive little pieces of engineering.

Photographer Documents the Struggle to Provide Girls with an Education in Kibera

Kibera is a division of Nairobi, Kenya, and as a rule, girls there don't have much of a shot at an education. Kenya is still very patriarchal, and if a family has both boys and girls, it's the boys who will be granted the opportunity to attend secondary school.

The Kibera Girls Soccer Academy (KGSA) is trying to fix that by providing girls in the area with a free secondary education, and photographer Jake Naughton has been fortunate enough to spend time there helping with the school and documenting its impact on the students who attend it.

Portraits of Musicians With Rubber Band-Wrapped Faces

Remember New Mexico-based photographer Wes Naman and his hilarious (if a bit silly) portraits of people with their faces comically distorted using Scotch tape?

That photo series -- which was featured all over the Internet -- instantly went viral, but after a time, the question Naman started getting asked most often was "what's next?" His Rubber Band series is the answer to that question.

Berndnaut Smilde Discusses His Ethereal Photos of Indoor Clouds

Dutch artist Berndnaut Smilde's photos of clouds hanging mysteriously in indoor locations have earned him a good bit of popularity. Created by using a smoke machine, precise atmospheric conditions and dramatic lighting, his Nimbus photos juxtapose the indoor and outdoor worlds.

In the short documentary video above, Smilde sat down with Avant/Garde Diaries and discussed his work, lending us some perspective on why he creates these photos and where he finds inspiration.

Irina Werning on How Her Viral ‘Back to the Future’ Project Came to Be

A couple of years ago, Irina Werning burst into the public eye when her series Back to the Future went viral. What started as a project were she would have relatives in Buenos Aires reenact old photos of themselves, has since expanded to a photographic phenomenon that has taken her all over the world.

The short documentary above gives us a chance to hear Werning's thoughts on the project: why she does it, how she puts the shots together, and whether or not she ever feels the project will truly be over.

Photos Depicting the Slow Decay of a City Made of Bread

In 2009, Swedish artist Johanna Mårtensson read an article that described how well the Earth would do if humans simply ceased to exist. Within a few centuries, most buildings would be collapsed or collapsing as animals, plants and bacteria re-established the social order in cities once ruled by the curious primate Homo sapien.

The article got her creative juices flowing, and ultimately led to a photo installation called "Decor:" a city built by Mårtensson entirely out of bread, and left to decompose as she took daily photos over the course of 6 months.