According to Time Magazine’s LightBox, “The very day after the 2011 LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph ended, this year’s guest curators—National Geographic photographer Vincent Musi and Washington Post visuals editor David Griffin—started to put together the slate of artists who will appear [for the 2012 iteration.]” This weekend, the visions of Musi and Griffin come to fruition as Charlottesville, Virginia plays host to LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph 2012.

LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph returns June 7 through 9. Pinned as a “celebration of photography, created by photographers, for those who share a passion for the still image,” LOOK3 is sponsored by BD, National Geographic magazine, and Canon USA, and hosted this year along Charlottesville, VA’s Downtown Mall. The Festival features exhibits and on-stage appearances of three “INsight” photographers, as well as exhibitions, outdoor projections, workshops and interviews over three days and nights.

INsight artists Alex Webb, Donna Ferrato, and Stanley Greene will be featured in 2012, three artists who have met the standards of having produced a significant body of work, and who are understood to possess the capacity to inspire others in the field. The weekend’s masters talks will be given by Ernesto Bazan, Hank Willis Thomas, Lynsey Addario, Bruce Gilden, Robin Schwartz and Camille Seaman, as well as Aperture Foundation’s Executive Director Chris Boot, whose more than 25 years in photography has yielded countless books commissioned, edited or published since 1984.

Aperture will be further present, assembling a special exhibition, Aperture at Sixty Library, which will showcase highlights from Aperture’s many years of publishing—first through the eponymous magazine then, starting in the 1960s, through books—that will reflect on one of the most comprehensive and influential libraries in the history of photography.

LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph
June 7 through 9, 2012
Downtown mall and other venues
Charlottesville, Virginia

Chris Boot MASTERS TALK
June 8, 2012, 11am
The Paramount Theater

Aperture at Sixty Library
June 7 through 17, 2012
200 Water St

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›› La Lettre de La Photographie profiles exhibitions at the festival by Hank Willis Thomas, Alex Webb, Bruce Gilden, Stanley Greene, and many more. NYTimes‘ LENS blog takes a closer look at Thomas’ work, LA Times‘ Framework interviews Mitch Dobrowner, whose work is also featured at Look3, and Time‘s LightBox speaks with guest curators Vincent Musi and David Griffin.

Join Phaidon at VII Gallery on Thursday, May 3rd during the exhibition of Questions Without Answers to celebrate the launch of the long-awaited book of the same name, published in conjunction with the 10th Anniversary of the founding of VII agency.

This major work presents a remarkable sequence of photo-stories from pioneering photo agency VII, documenting world history as we have experienced it since the end of the Cold War. The 11 extraordinarily talented photographers who are part of this agency work at the cutting edge of digital photojournalism, committed to recording social and cultural change as it happens around the world. Each brings an individual vision to the agency – some choosing to tackle dramatic events head-on, others pursuing more idiosyncratic, personal projects – but all share a commitment to their individual subjects and to their belief that the act of communication provides hope even in the most extreme situations.

Questions Without Answers is an ambitious book featuring a strikingly broad selection of photo stories. Photos documenting Barack Obama giving a speech on Afghanistan to American troops sit alongside a collection of portraits featuring famous cultural figures such as David Bowie and Bernardo Bertolucci. We move from an exploration of the spread and impact of AIDS in Asia to dispatches from the current economic crisis and its effect on those working in finance. The crucial work done by VII in documenting conflict – environmental, social and political, both violent and non-violent – is also represented, including stories from the war in Iraq, the crisis in Darfur and the terrible events of 9/11.

With an introduction by the eminent David Friend, the former director of photography at Life magazine, this book is an important, moving and compelling record of the world we live in.

The book includes work by Stephanie Sinclair, and Lynsey Addario, both of whom have been featured in Aperture Magazine and The New York Times Magazine Photographs (Aperture 2011).

Questions Without Answers
Book Launch and Reception
Thursday, May 3, 2012, 7-9pm

VII Gallery
Brooklyn, New York

›› Buy The New York Times Magazine Photographs for 30% off.

Photograph courtesy Lynsey Addario/VII network. Featured in Aperture issue 201.

Click here to hear photojournalist Lynsey Addario’s account of being captured, along with three others, by Libyan rebels in March. Addario was interviewed by Morning Edition co-host Renee Montagne, and she relates how they were taken by Moammar Gadhafi’s soldiers after retreating from rebel fire at a checkpoint near Benghazi. They were released on March 21 after several days of abuse and threats to their lives. Lynsey Addario: At War, a selection of images focused on women soldiers in Afghanistan, was featured in Aperture magazine issue 201.

Issue 201 features:

An age-old German pagan festival is documented by Axel Hoedt (cover image).

Photojournalist Lynsey Addario covers new terrain in her war photography—women soldiers on and off duty in Afghanistan.

Custom-built cameras by Aïm Deüelle Lüski offer a unique exploration of the medium and the ongoing conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Lucia Nimcova culls leftover images from the photographic archives of Socialist Czechoslovakia to understand the stories within stories.

An interview with famed Parisian photographer Willy Ronis, shortly before his death.

Contemporary photography from Taiwan, from a dynamic group of artists.

Roger Ballen‘s cryptic images from his new project, The Asylum.

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