Curtis Mann's photo-based art is buzzing around the internet these days, and also creating a stir at his solo exhibition in Belgium right now.

Here's a great introduction to his work, thanks to Karsten Lund at the Museum of Contemporary Photography:

For the series Modifications Curtis Mann appropriates and refashions anonymous snapshots that were taken in countries like Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq—places where violent conflicts are deeply rooted and often seem impossible to resolve. Mann states, "I question what I've learned about these places and I realize I usually have to erase most of that knowledge and begin again—more open-minded, more curious, and more hopeful than before." As he submits the found images to substantial physical alterations Mann effectively filters them through a new visual vocabulary, opening them up for himself—and for viewers—to engage in a new search for meaning.

After collecting photographs from photo-sharing websites, estate sales, and online auctions, Mann enlarges them and paints certain parts of the photographs with a clear varnish. When he submerges these prints in household bleach, the varnished areas resist the bleach while the untreated portions of the image are washed away. As a result, large sections of each photograph are replaced by a bright white void, while at its edges gradients of red and yellow bear faint traces of the original image. The varnished areas depict clusters of people, fragments of buildings, or solitary trees, fully visible but isolated in these otherworldly landscapes. These modifications accentuate particular details in the original photographs, hinting at their potential significance.

One of Mann's hopes for this series is to invite new considerations of the effects of large-scale violence, but just as importantly he guides us towards a tangible engagement with the photographic image itself. At stake is our very experience of the medium and our sense of its vulnerabilities. In each of these photographs Mann engages in a complex negotiation between creation and destruction, and between document and fiction. As the bleach strips the picture away Mann probes the limits of photographic credibility. Everything that remains legible takes on a new charge or a metaphorical weight. In his hands the photograph is a malleable thing, providing a gentle reminder that digital imaging might not be such a new world after all.

-Karsten Lund, Research Fellow, Museum of Contemporary Photography

You can read a recent interview with Curtis Mann by Jörg Colberg over at Conscientious. And more info is at Mann's website and blog.

Special thanks to Peg Amison for nudging me about this work again.

In this 15-minute video just released by the TED Conferences in Monterey, California, the photo director for National Geographic, David Griffin, talks about the power of photography to go beyond the usual, to connect us to scattered parts of our world. In a talk filled with spectacular images of nature, he demonstrates how using photos helps to tell stories that would never have the same impact with words alone.

Thanks to Filippo Dellosso for this link.

"Of all the 'Now & Then' photographic projects (places taken from postcards, families twenty years after, daily self-portraits, etc.), Automotive Monogamy by Matteo Ferrari is definitely among those that strikes me most: it is made of diptychs showing old cars with their owners next to them, re-enacting the same pose of a picture of many years before. While almost everything around them changed. . . their jewel car is always the same, defying time, shining now even more than before."

— From the always interesting bi-lingual (Italian-English) Hippolyte Bayard blog about photography.

I discovered this photo series, while reading a great interview with Joni Sternbach about her alternative-process photography. You can find Joni's wet-plate collodion portraits of surfers in Lens Culture.

"What is the invisible age? To a large extent it’s a phenomenon of our society, which sees and values younger women for their beauty and energy. Our society also sees and values older women for their wisdom and character. But, in the eyes of this same society, the 50ish to 65ish woman is of little value and practically invisible."

The Invisible Age is a traveling exhibit curated by Jan Potts and Beth Kientzle. The self-portraits of the 31 women photographers express how it feels to be at the "invisible" age for women in America — between 50 and 65.

Read more here at Lens Culture, and see 34 sample images from the excellent exhibition.

The exhibition is open September 4 through October 10, 2008 at The Gallery at Rayko Photo Center in San Francisco. For more info, see the exhibition website: www.theinvisibleage.com.

Geoffrey Hiller edits and publishes Verve, a concise, informative blog all about contemporary documentary photography around the world. When you're ready to explore some serious issues that rarely make it to mainstream media, hunker down and check out Verve.

Here's what Hiller had to say about this photo by Adam Huggins, in Verve's posting on June 30, 2008:

Adam Huggins (b. 1981, Canada) became interested in photography in 2000. Since then he has been traveling and taking pictures that document society and the world we live in. His photography has been exhibited at : Centre Pompidou, Paris, La Triennale di Milano, The Shanghai Art Museum, and Shiodomeitalia Creative Center in Tokyo. He has worked with numerous publications including: The New York Times, ELLE, Der Spiegel, COLORS, and the International Herald Tribune. In late 2004 he witnessed the devastation caused by the South Asian Tsunami to numerous fishing communities along the southern coast of India. The theme of fishing developed in his latest exhibited work.

About the Photograph:

In late 2007 The New York Times published Adams story and excellent multimedia piece about how New York City’s ubiquitous manhole covers are made at a foundry in India and soon after, it became a widely debated topic of conversation in numerous newspapers’ commentary and opinion pages around the world. The photo-essay drew attention to the alarming lack of safety protections in place for the Indian workers that endure extremely hazardous working conditions in order to produce manhole covers for New York and other municipalities throughout the United States, calling for State legislatures and prompting Con Edison, one of the private utilities companies that purchases these items, to rewrite their future international contracts to include safety requirements. He was subsequently awarded a Certificate of Special Merit at the 2007 Human Rights Press Awards in Hong Kong for this body of work.

Be sure to look at Hiller's "personal" blog, too, which has a lighter conversational tone, and is loaded with great photos, excellent writing and insight. He's teaching visual communications and interactive media at the Independent University of Bangladesh, while doing research funded by his Fulbright award. He updates that blog regularly, too.

An article published in today's New York Times (New York Edition) reports on some last-minute censorship of anti-war billboards scheduled to be displayed in St. Paul during the GOP convention next week.

On August 8, CBS Outdoor signed a contract to post five billboards showing portraits of volunteer US soldiers taken by New York photographer Suzanne Opton. In the portraits, the soldiers, men and women, look dazed, confused and even traumatized — they had just returned from war in Afghanistan or Iraq, and were scheduled to go back to war in a few days.

Just days before the billboards were supposed to go up, however, the contract got cancelled — with little chance that Opton can find alternative public space to display her simple and poignant message.

“It’s about engaging the public,” Opton said. “We just felt that people don’t know the sacrifices made by the military and a small handful of families.”

“Can we see it on a person’s face when they’ve seen something unforgettable?” she asks. “What I wanted to do was take an intimate and vulnerable picture of a soldier. They may look troubled, but it’s not easy to be a soldier. Why should that be hidden from us?”

Did the GOP media manipulation machine squash the deal? CBS Outdoor spokesperson Jodi Senese didn't answer that question directly. “We don’t object to the program or the art,” she said. “Our only concern is that people driving on highways at 55 or 60 miles an hour, seeing an image like this popping out of nowhere, it could be disturbing.”

Yes. Precisely. That is the intent. As John Lennon said, "Give me some truth."

An identical billboard was displayed in Denver during the Democratic National Convention without controversy.

Opton's series of Soldier photographs appeared here in Lens Culture earlier, along with a great audio interview with the photographer. The New York Times links to the Lens Culture interview with Opton in their online edition. If you haven't listened to her, you should check it out.

Context, framing, style, materials, and historical and cinematic reference all contribute to the success of this click-clack series of black-and-white photos taken through passenger windows in railroad trains rolling through all 48 states of the continental USA.

The lulling, mesmerizing rhythm you feel inside a moving train is coupled with strobe-like flashing of blurring scenery passing by outside. Seems like if you blink the whole scene changes every few seconds (unless you're traveling through some place like Kansas).

Photographer Candace Plummer Gaudiani plants us comfortably in the dark next to a window seat and steadies our gaze out through the oval-edged window of an American train. And the worlds that pass before our eyes (in nostalgic black-and-white) could be right out of a Jack Kerouac novel.

For the best effect, try the high-resolution slide show. It'll take you on a brief armchair holiday across the states.

London-based Korean artist-photographer Mimi Youn was one of the winners of a Lens Culture/Rhubarb Photobook Award this year. Her work is fresh, naive (perhaps), and exploits the quirky characteristics of the (soon-to-be-extinct?) Polaroid materials.

When asked about her work, Mimi Youn explained things this way:

"I felt there were limitations to expressing my thoughts, emotions and ideas as typical “photographs". In my recent work, I use a Polaroid camera. After I take a picture, I cut text into the surface of the Polaroid. Most of the pictures I take look ambiguous and vague because of intentional overexposure; however, marks cut from the photographs look paradoxically strong and painful."

As an award winner, Mimi Youn will design and publish a new photobook. In the meantime, Lens Culture has a handful of hand-worked images that the jurors at Rhubarb-Rhubarb liked so much. You will also discover some more philosophical statements by the artist in the text that accompanies the photos.

Dazzling 1 © Mimi Youn

When I checked out her website, I was delighted to find this hilarious minimalist video. It reminds me of some of the best Jim Jarmusch moments.

German photographer Martin Klimas is taking the technique of high-speed photography in new artful directions. Remember the bullet-through-the-apple photo? Or the drop of milk suspended in mid-air? Well now we have graceful exploding ceramic dancers and shattered flower vases (with flowers not yet up-ended).

See more at his website. Thanks to lauralsweet on Twitter.

The 15th Noorderlicht Photofestival in the Netherlands is presenting many never-seen-before photographs from Eastern Europe. Two major exhibitions, Behind Walls (37 photographers from 13 countries), and Beyond Walls (35 photographers from 20 countries), provide a tremendous overview of the diverse approaches of photography before and after Communist rule.

Lens Culture is featuring an extensive preview of photos from the exhibitions.