All photos © Brian Ach

Brian Ach created “The Photographer Project” to raise money for fellow celebrity and entertainment photographer Paul Hawthorne, who fell ill in Fall 2008 with amyloidosis, a rare disease. The idea was to pull New York City-based celebrity photographers who regularly work the red carpet rope lines, event photographers and paparazzi into his Brooklyn studio for full length portraits, which Ach would turn into a book to benefit his friend. Sadly, Hawthorne passed away from complications of his disease on December 20, 2008. But Ach went on with the project anyway, and has just self-published the book. Proceeds from the sale will go to Hawthorne’s family. For more of the project check out Ach’s Web site, here. (more…)

© AJ Wilhelm

This series of photographs documents young men in Kabul who are living as homeless opium addicts in a structure built by the Russians to house operas, ballets and music concerts. The building was decimated during tribal fighting of the Afghan civil war and sometimes shelters as many as 400 addicts. Most of these men have the same story of addiction–they snuck into Iran to work in fields or weave carpets or do other back-breaking labor and became addicted when they started smoking opium to ease their physical pains. Deportation inevitably forces them back to Afghanistan where they travel to Kabul desperate as full blown addicts begging and stealing to buy more opium. There isn’t much hope or help and many health officials fear that more addicts will start using the drug intravenously, a more dangerous but cheaper route, as eradication efforts threaten to drive up the street price. See more from AJ’s series here.

© All Photographs by Gina LeVay

Sandhogs is an original portal to the unseen characters and systems of underground New York—revealing the essential “art form” of mining in the modernized city. Excavation of City Water Tunnel #3 began in 1970. For each mile tunneled, approximately one Sandhog has lost his life in a mining related accident. In 2003 Gina LeVay was granted rare access to photograph the “hogs,” in the tunnel and at off-site locations. Here are images from her newly released book, Sandhogs, published by Powerhouse.
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© Phil Toledano.

To see more of Phil Toledano’s work please click here.

©Jan Grarup/NOOR

Leaders from nations around the world are gathered this week in Copenhagen at a UN summit on climate change, and for a growing portion of the world’s population, an international agreement to address the problem can’t come soon enough. Shown here is an image from Jan Grarup’s recent story, “Darfur: A Climate Conflict.” The story is part of a group project called “Consequences” by nine photographer members of NOOR, who produced climate change stories from around the world to help raise awareness in Copenhagen. For more images and information about the project, see our interview with NOOR’s managing director here.