"Daddy Tattoo, Philadelphia," 2004 © Zoe Strauss/Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art

Photographer Zoe Strauss, who from 2001 to 2010 installed her work on pillars below an I-95 overpass in South Philadelphia and hosted an annual day-long exhibition, is getting a mid-career retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The survey includes 150 images and extends beyond the museum with the Billboard Project, a series of 54 billboards throughout the Philadelphia area that will each display one of Strauss’s photos, blown up to 12 x 25 feet, without any text, logos, etc. A self-taught photographer who focuses on the “the beauty and struggle of everyday life,” Strauss is a true testament to DIY ingenuity. The exhibit runs through April 22, 2012.

"South Philly (Mattress Flip Front)," 2001 © Zoe Strauss/Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art

"Vanessa, Philadelphia," 2006 © Zoe Strauss/Courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art

© Steve Fitch. Above: Drive-in Theater, Sharon, Pennsylvania, 1975  (from his series Diesels and Dinosaurs)

Steve Fitch is a photographer and educator who has been making photographs of the American West for more then four decades.  As a boy, the scenes that he observed out of the window of his father’s 1951 Buick fascinated him.  In the introduction of Fitch’s first book Diesels and Dinosaurs, he re-accounts memories of observing small towns, glowing neon signs and 18-wheelers roaming the highway. Fitch was also witness to the rise and fall of the drive in theater.  All were experiences that molded his interests as an adult – leading to his visual studies of the highway culture of the American West and man’s encroachment upon it. Highway Culture, an exhibition of Fitch’s work made between 1971 through the present, will open at the photo-eye Gallery on February 25, 2012.

-courtesy Photo-Eye

© Vincent J Musi.

National Geographic photographer Vince J Musi is an award winning photographer whose unique take on animal photography was recognized in the 2011 PDN Photo Annual. The early deadline for the 2012 Photo Annual is TODAY at midnight PST. The image above  is from a story on wild things bred for their aggressive behavior. Scientists in Novosibirsk, Russia, are comparing these rats to those bred for friendliness to understand the connection between genetics and behavior.

"Girl reading comic book in newsstand" by Teenie Harris (c. 1940-1945) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

For over 40 years Charles “Teenie” Harris documented life in and around Pittsburgh’s Hill District for the influential black newspaper the Pittsburgh Courier. Affectionately called “One Shot” due to the brisk manner in which he photographed his subjects, Harris spent as much time shooting the everyday people of the neighborhood as he did the famous people who visited it. With close to 80,000 negatives in his archive, he is said to have best captured the urban African-American experience during the 20th century.

The Carnegie Museum of Art acquired Harris’s archive in 2001 and set out preserving, cataloguing and digitizing the images. The museum is currently exhibiting the first major retrospective of his work, “Teenie Harris, Photographer: An American Story.” The exhibit includes a life-size projection of close to 1,000 of Harris’s images set to an original jazz score; a chronological display featuring small prints of those same images; and a mini-exhibit of 12 16 x 20-inch prints selected by various experts. The exhibit will stay in Pittsburgh through April 7 and then move on to the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library.

"Duke Ellington at piano, with dancer Honey Coles and Billy Strayhorn looking on, in the Stanley Theatre" by Teenie Harris (c. 1942-1943) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

"Woman outside Kay’s Valet Shoppe" by Teenie Harris (c. 1938–1945) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

"Soldiers from the 372nd Infantry marching in parade, Fifth Avenue, Downtown" by Teenie Harris (c. July 1942) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

"Three men and a woman at a restaurant counter" by Teenie Harris (c. 1948–1960) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

"Protesters with UNPC signs outside United Mine Safety Appliance Company, Braddock Avenue, Homewood" by Teenie Harris (c. October 1963) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

"Lena Horne reflected in mirror in dressing room at Stanley Theatre" by Teenie Harris (c. 1944) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

"Roland M. Sawyer and Aileen Eckstein Sawyer posed on their wedding day on steps of The Thimble Shop, 5913 Bryant Street, Highland Park" by Teenie Harris (c. August 1938) © 2006 Carnegie Museum of Art

“Melvin Moore, 2008″ © Ellen Susan

Photographer Ellen Susan makes portraits of active-duty soldiers in the US Army using the wet plate collodion process, the primary photographic method used during the Civil War. Her portraits are included in “surFACE: Contemporary Wet Plate Collodion Portraiture,” now on view at Photo Center NW in Seattle. The show features tintypes and ambrotypes by five contemporary photographers who use the nineteenth-century wet plate technique:  Ellen Susan, Daniel Carrillo, Robb Kendrick, Jenny Sampson and Joni Sternbach.

Susan, who lives near two major Army installations, uses the deliberative, careful process to show members of the military in a way that invites a second look. The slow process requires her subjects to remain still for up to 60 seconds, gazing intently at the camera. Each detailed, grainless ambrotype she produces,  PCNW notes, “engages viewers in a manner that is distinct from the casually made, ephemeral images that have become so familiar.”

The exhibition is on view at PCNW through February 12.