Aperture aggregates the best posts from this past week in the photography blogosphere.

• The New Yorker‘s Photobooth, APhotoEditor and many others track Magnum’s latest expedition, “House of Photos,” an archival collaboration by photographers Martin Parr, Alex Webb, Larry Towell, Bruce Gilden, Jim Goldberg, Alec Soth and five others, similar to their recent “Postcards From America” series.  Eleven Magnum photographers have been exploring Rochester, NY, the birthplace of Kodak on the eve of the company’s demise, each in their own particular style, posting regular updates to Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook. Find more background on the project in a Q&A with Martin Parr.
• Photo District News reminds us all about worldwide Pinhole Photography Day, which falls on this Sunday, April 29, 2012, and shares a selection of seven pinhole camera-made images, encouraging readers to submit their own. Grab an empty oatmeal can and learn how to make your own pinhole camera from Kodak.
• This week, PhotoShelter Blog compiles a list of “The 40+ Items Every Photography Assistant Needs Now,” including some not so obvious ones like Tums, a blow drier, and Tylenol. The article is just one small part of their new 44-page downloadable Photo Assistant’s Handbook which covers among other things, “12 Problems that Photo Assistants are Expected to Solve.”
• The Washington Post‘s Paul Farhi investigates the sudden disappearance of Vogue’s highly controversial profile of Syria’s first lady from the Conde Naste publication’s website; a profile accompanied by images shot by war photographer James Nachtwey.
• On Tuesday, the NYC Department of Records announced the official debut of a public online archive containing an astounding 870,000 photographs of New York City. Unfortunately, “due to overwhelming demand,” and server maintenance, we didn’t get to see the images just yet, but Associated Press did. The Atlantic‘s Alan Taylor did too, and culled through the archive posting 53 of their favorites. While they work out the kinks in their system, you can still check out the work of Eugene de Salignac in New York Rises (2007), a copublication with the Municipal Archives (now part of the Department of Records). This book offers a peek into one small part of the City’s amazing archive — a selection of images de Salignac shot while working for NYC’s Department of Bridges/Plant and Structures from 1906 – 1934.
• Time‘s LightBox announce the 2012 Overseas Press Club Award winners André Liohn, David Guttenfelder, and Pete Muller with a slideshow of 50 images, and a profile for each. They also post an exclusive on the Kraszna-Krausz Photography Book Awards winner, Carleton Watkins: The Complete Mammoth Photographs by Weston Naef and Christine Hult-Lewis, from Getty Publications.
• Fototazo opens up an extensive two-day conversation on “The Increasing Consideration of Documentary Photography and Photojournalism as Fine Art Photography.” An image from Richard Mosse’s Infra was among the many used to illustrate.  The monograph (Aperture 2011/12) was also included in The New York Times‘ round-up of “Vivid Guides to Unfamiliar Landscapes” and was nominated by Rob Hornstra as one of the best books of this past year at the International Photobook Festival.

Aperture aggregates the best posts from this past week in the photography blogosphere.

• LightBox presents an essay written by Tim Hetherington, who was featured in Aperture issue 204, from the new book Photographs Not Taken, one year after the photographer’s death in Libya. The collection, compiled by Will Steacy (one of Aperture’s Green Cart Commissioned photographers), also features essays by Roger Ballen, Ed Kashi, Mary Ellen Mark, Alec Soth, Peter van Agtmael and more. Additionally, PDN features an 8 image retrospective by Hetherington, whose work is now on view at Yossi Milo Gallery in New York (through May 12, 2012).
• This week in commentary: LPV Magazine  digests Instagram articles by Om Malik, the New Yorker’s Ian Crouch and New York Magazine’s Paul Ford, finds out, “Facebook Buys Instagram, Some Photographers Sad.” APhotoEditor reads Paul Melcher‘s poignant article on La Lettre de La Photographie alongside Marc Andreessen‘s WSJ piece “Software Will Eat The World,” and explores “how a company with 13 employees and no profits [Instagram] can replace a now bankrupt company [Kodak] that once employed over 120,000 people with annual sales of $10 billion as the ‘manufacturer’ of a device to bring photography to the masses.” In related news, NPPA opens a mobile phone photo contest, calling for entries through Sunday, April 22, 2012, while Magnum Photos has deployed another team to Rochester to document the once-vibrant home of Kodak as part of their Postcards From America series.
• Poynter investigates the controversy over the Pentagon delaying the LA Times from publishing photographs of US soldiers posing with the body parts of Afghan corpses, a story which has since elicited over 2000 comments on the Times’ website.
• Sophie Calle, featured in Aperture issues 191 and 142, talks to the Guardian about her best shot from the series Voir La Mer, in which she “took 15 people of all ages, from kids to one man in his 80s, to see [the sea] for the first time.” She photographed them from behind so as to not obstruct their initial encounter, and she captured the entire process, including their reactions, on video. Her current exhibition, Historias de Pared (at Museo de Arte Moderno Medellín through June 3, 2012) is reviewed on Fototazo.
• In honor of Albert Hoffman’s infamous Bicycle Day (April 19), LIFE Magazine shares a number of never-before-published dream-like photographs that were to accompany an original 1966 article titled, “New Experience That Bombards the Senses: LSD Art.”
• American Suburb X shares journal entries from William Gedney on “Kentucky, Sex and Diane Arbus,” alongside scans of the archival material culled from the Duke University Rare Books and Manuscript Library.  Speaking of rare books, ICP Library profiles some of the innovative and experimental photobooks they found and photographed at the New York Antiquarian Book Fair last week.
• Time Magazine releases their annual list of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World,” alongside a portrait gallery of 24 of the honorees.  Included this year is artist Christian Marclay, of the monumental video installation recently purchased by MoMA, The Clock, and the 2007 Aperture monograph Shuffle, which takes the form of a deck of cards. The Clock will be shown for free this summer from the middle of July to mid-August at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium. Stake out your places now!

Join us on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 6:30 pm at Aperture Gallery for an artist talk with photographer Richard Mosse , followed by a book signing and reception for his new book Infra.

Aperture Gallery and Bookstore
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
Between 10th and 11th Avenues
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Over the course of two years, Mosse documented the ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of Congo using a discontinued type of color infrared surveillance film called Kodak Aerochrome to offer a stunning and radical rethinking of how to depict a complex and intractable conflict.  With film that is extra sensitive to green light, he renders the rich typography of the country as well as the camouflage of the Congolese army and combative rebel groups in vivid hues of lavender, crimson, and hot pink.

This is Mosse’s first monograph, co-published by Aperture and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.  These improbably colored images underline the growing tension between art, fiction, and traditional photojournalism as a way of portraying and communicating the impact of war. Mosse states that the collection works “through shocks to the imagination,” using photography’s unique ability “to make visible what cannot be perceived.”

Select large format prints from the collection are currently on view at the Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, NC through April 15, organized by Xandra Eden, Curator of Exhibitions.

Weatherspoon Art Museum
500 Tate St
Greensboro, NC 27412
336-334-5770

Mosse’s limited edition print “Débris, North Kivu, Eastern Congo,” is also now available for purchase at Aperture. Mosse calls the ethereal shot a “surprising” double-exposure that came about by accident in March 2011. “‘Débris ‘pushed me to embrace failure and let go of certain ways of seeing.”

Photographs by Richard Mosse have been featured on the cover of Aperture magazine #203.

The Curators and Artists

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© Andrew Hinderaker

Moveable Feast: Fresh Produce and the NYC Green Cart Program features the work of photographers who have turned their lenses on city neighborhoods where there is little access to nutritious food, documenting street scenes and urban environments. The exhibition also reveals a new, important use for a nearly ubiquitous and historic urban icon: the pushcart. Moveable Feast is organized by the Museum of the City of New York in conjunction with Aperture Foundation, with support from the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. Kodak generously donated film for the project.

Aperture Foundation asked five emerging photographers to undertake the NYC Green Cart Commission: LaToya Ruby Frazier, Thomas Holton, Gabriele Stabile, Will Steacy, and Shen Wei. As media outlets for this kind of sustained storytelling disappear, this commission is especially important—it supports photography, produces a meaningful archive, and expands public dialogue. Each of the five photographers brought a unique artistic vision and point of view to their mission of documenting the Green Carts, which operate in designated neighborhoods in each of the five boroughs. They photographed the carts themselves, the lives of the vendors, interactions with customers, and the commercial landscapes of the surrounding communities.

A special thanks to the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund for their partnership and support in making the Green Cart Photography Commission and this exhibition possible. Laurie M. Tisch commented, “The New York City Green Cart Initiative brings diverse partners together to help increase access to healthy fruits and vegetables across our city. Green Carts operate at the intersection of public health and urban culture. The Illumination Fund is delighted to help facilitate this inspiring showcase depicting the experience of NYC Green Cart vendors. The work of these emerging photographers celebrates an important NYC program as well as an iconic New York City street symbol.”

Susan Henshaw Jones, the Ronay Menschel Director of the Museum, stated: “We are so pleased to present the work of these artists, most of whom are working in the tradition of street photography and social documentary. The Museum of the City of New York has one of the most important repositories of photographs related to the social history of New York City. These five photographers follow in their footsteps. We are proud to present this exhibition, which helps focus attention on a vitally important civic issue.”

NYC Green Carts is an independently operated mobile fruit and vegetable stand program initiated by the Mayor’s Fund for New York City, the New York City Department of Health, and the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund. The Museum of the City of New York, with substantial and important holdings in the field of New York City photographs—most notably, in this instance, the Jacob Riis archive—jumped at the opportunity to exhibit the photographs in Moveable Feast and will complement the contemporary photographs with images from their historic collection. Several photographs of pushcarts will be exhibited, including an 1895 image by Jacob Riis, entitled “A Vegetable Stand in Mulberry Street Bend with Myself (Jacob A. Riis) in the Picture.”

Exhibition on view through July 10
The Museum of the City of New York
1220 Fifth Avenue