Charles Schwartz - New York Camera Obscura

The ephemeral projections of a camera obscura have fascinated artists since the 15th century. Charles Schwartz and Bill Westheimer have been exploring the wonders of the camera obscura in modern upper Manhattan — playing with perspective, surface, the effects of the sun — and capturing the results with digital photography. The location of their camera obscura is fixed, yet it provides a dizzying, ever-changing view of the city's activities, architecture and landscape. This work is not as iconic as the celebrated images of Abelardo Morrell; it captures more fleeting moments, with the intensity of a distinctly personal gaze from a high, darkened room.

Their work was featured in a group show, "Contemporary Obscurists: The Camera Obscura in Contemporary Photography" at Alan Klotz Gallery in New York, September 15 - November 12, 2006. The wide-ranging exhibition also included images by Stephen Berkman, Rebecca Cummins, Vera Lutter, Abelardo Morrell, and Shi Guorui.

—LensCulture

Elysium

These richly imaginative yet deeply melancholy portraits bring together old photographs and dead flowers to convey feelings of sadness, sentimentality—and eternity.

Recent Wet Plate Collodion Work

David Prifti makes wonderful photographs using very old techniques and materials. The results are rich with nuance and quirkiness, and evoke a sense of nostalgia even when the images are clearly of our time.

Guarita:
Brazil's Watchers

Private sentry boxes, guaritas, dot city street corners across Brazil. A look into the night sentries' lives and how this local phenomenon reflects a universally felt sense of urban isolation.

Charles Schwartz & Bill Westheimer