Do you know this story? It’s a good one!

I wrote about Vivian and John way back in 2009. Their story is about an undiscovered, photographic gold mine. They never knew each other, but now they’ll forever be connected… A few years ago, John Maloof went to an auction house across the street from his home. For $380, he bought thousands and thousands of undeveloped negatives that had been abandoned in a storage locker by an American woman named Vivian Maier. John started developing the negatives, and EUREKA!!!… he truly did find a gold mine. This is just a minute fraction of what he found:

Vivian’s photographs are stunning, beautifully composed, intimate glimpses into American life in the 1950s and 60s. What’s not intimate though is the knowledge about who Vivian actually was. She died only days before John tried reaching out to her. He had so many questions – who was she? Why did this unbelievably talented woman never show her work to anyone? But now, thanks to a beautiful documentary that is currently in production, a few of those questions have been answered… and they’re a bit strange. A sneak peek at  Finding Vivian Maier …

We wish we knew you, Vivian {her self-portraits could be a post all on their own}:

Love.

Sigh. So… who wants to go to Iceland now? Yep, me too! This is a personal body of work by Sydney based photographer Anna Pogossova, quite appropriately titled, Iceland. The photos are stunning on their own, and then she added those perfectly chosen blocks of color, and managed to make them even more beautiful. Ok, go get your boots, and let’s go!

I wrote about Canadian photographer Amy Friend just over a year ago. It was her gorgeous series, titled Dare alla Luce, that took my breath away. Amy has had a zillion people ask her to make prints from the series… and she listened! As of this very moment, the four images shown above are available in her brand new Etsy shop…  for $35 each {wait, what?!} Ok, that’s it, I’m going over there right now – I’ll meet ya there!

p.s I got “Waning Lights” – the two ladies on the beach! LOVE it!!!

This is the lovely, and slightly disturbing, work of German artist Loretta Lux. Photographs? Paintings? Both? Well, Loretta is a photographer, but she studied painting at Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich… perhaps that’s why her photographs look like this! Some of these pieces take up to a year to complete, as she begins with a photograph but then digitally manipulates it by striping away the background and then dropping her subjects into these muted, dream-like environments. So pretty, and eery, and lovely, and strange… hey Wes Anderson, I think Loretta just cast your next five films!

ps. She photographs boys too, but there was just something about the girls… love love love!

{via The Lacquerie}

So, I just discovered Aesthetica, a gorgeous “Art & Culture Magazine” from the UK. It was this stunning story, in Issue 51, about American photographer Garry Winogrand {1928-1984} that got me! He spent the 1960’s capturing beautiful moments in everyday American life  - from the rich and famous, to the average stranger on the street {… if you’re as captivated by these images as I am, you can see this work in person at SFMOMA until June 2, 2013}. Now, as fantastic as these spreads are, Aesthetica is not just about black and white vintage retrospectives, oh no! It’s also full of glossy, contemporary pages as well…

Yes! Enter the work of Montreal based fashion/editorial photographers, MarquisMontes, aka Jose Enrique Montes Hernandez and Valérie Boulet, partners in work and in life. Quite a contrast to the work of Garry Winogrand, but it all finds a perfect home in this issue. Gor.Ge. Ous.

You might recognize this as the work of Chilean artist Jose Romussi…

Gorgeous, yes? I’ve gushed over his Dancer series, as have countless other bloggers, and pinners, and tweeters… BUT… it was only recently that I saw these pieces:

Embroidery, and sewing machine on photographs, from a series titled String Figures. Oh my word, I love them so, so much… especially the message being “held” in that first piece. Kinda makes you want to just exhale, and let a few “mistakes” happen.

You can’t help but wonder who might live in these trailers – some with so much care put into them, and others, well not so much. All of these {and there are plenty more} are part of a series called Trailers Collected, by American photographer Nan Brown. They are iconic, and flat, but at the same time, have so much detail and personality… kinda makes me want to live in a trailer with a tiny garden, and a wolf flag in the window.

So, you know how I love writing about hyper-real paintings that look like photographs, right? Well, this time, they’re actually photographs… that kind of look like hyper-real paintings! Brooklyn based photographer Bobby Doherty has a portfolio full of amazing work {that looks nothing like these photographs}, but I totally found myself pulling out the shots that looked like simple, perfect, paintings. Go figure.

{via Booooooom}

Gor. Ge. Ous.

When I first saw this collaborative work, by Britt Bass and Morgan Blake, I thought “Oh, ok, so Britt painted over top of Morgan’s photos. Nice.” … but wait, that’s not quite right. Morgan’s photos are actually printed on transparencies, and then laid over Britt’s painted canvas. I realize the effect is similar, but I kind of love this “reverse” way of doing it. There’s a lot less control, because what’s underneath is already underneath. An exciting surprise to see what shows through!

{ps. All of these prints under $45… framed! Yep, you better go get one right this very minute!}

Gasp! I love these, very, very, very much. All of these dreamy images are from a series, titled “Flying Houses”, by French photographer Laurent Chéhère. {If you happened to be in Paris last fall, you might have seen them on display at Galerie Paris-Beijing – I wish I had been in Paris to see these last fall!} Laurent is an award-winning advertising photographer, who left it all behind to travel the world and pursue his personal work – pulling up roots, and flying off to see the world… hm.

{via Colossal}