West Fayette Street, #5, 2012

Syracuse-based photographer and teacher Willson Cummer’s new project “Available” explores buildings and vacant lots in Central New York that are for sale or lease. “In the current economy, there are hundreds of such properties,” Cummer says. “The state of availability is a poignant one. When a person says they’re available, it means they are looking for a new romantic relationship. These vacant buildings and sites are also looking for new life. They are in limbo states between one purpose and another. I am attracted to the humble paint jobs that cover up graffiti, as well as the buildings that sport graffiti. Often these structures appear to have been made without much concern for architecture. A certain amount of square footage was needed, and a building was thrown up to suit. The vernacular architecture is visually intriguing.”

Cummer, whose work plumbs the intersection of the built and natural worlds, recently exhibited another of his projects, a series of images of parking garages, at OK Harris gallery in New York City. (more…)

© Henry Jacobson. Musicians gather at an impromptu jam around a bonfire at Storyhill Music Festival in northern Minnesota.

Photographers and filmmakers Sara Terry (director) and Henry Jacobson (cinematographer) are currently at work on a feature length documentary, FOLK, that follows several singer-songwriters as they travel the United States, sharing their music with fans and fellow musicians. The film, which is currently in post-production, is “part music documentary and part road trip movie,” Terry writes in a description of the film. “FOLK lets our characters’ lives and their songs do what singer-songwriters have always done: amplify the themes that resonate across our cultural landscape—whether it’s re-defining success in the face of failure, trying to find wholeness in an increasingly fragmented world, or struggling to make sense of the trials and triumphs that make us all so human.”

This is the second documentary from Terry and Jacobson. Their award-winning first film, Fambul Tok, told the story of a grassroots organization promoting healing and reconciliation in post-conflict Sierra Leone.

Related: To Forgive, Not Forget: Sara Terry’s New Film Fambul Tok

William Wegman. All images © John Loengard/Courtesy Monroe Gallery.

A new exhibition of the work of LIFE magazine staff photographer and editor John Loengard’s black-and-white photographs is currently showing through the end of January at the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Among the prints in the exhibition are several photographs of legendary photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstadt, Annie Leibovitz and Richard Avedon. These photographs are also part of Loengard’s new book, Age of Silver: Encounters With Great Photographers (powerHouse), which celebrates, through Loengard’s portraits, some of the most notable photographers in the history of the medium. (more…)

All images © Darren Soh. Rally, National Solidarity Party, 5th May, 2011

During the nine days of campaigning in the lead up to Singapore’s historic general elections on May 7, photographer Darren Soh documented several rallies using the technique of a landscape photographer.

Using a borrowed Leica S2, Soh photographed the rallies, then stitched images together to create final files that are roughly 1GB.

“The most obvious way of photographing an election campaign is to show people’s faces and emotions, and the candidates up-close,” Soh, who is based in Singapore, explains. “I wanted to show the scale of these rallies.”

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All photographs © Jenny J. Norris. Guards check passports at Parliament in Kiev for a Liquidators rally on March 16, 2011.

Photographer Jenny J. Norris’s images of Chernobyl “Liquidators” and developmentally disabled children born in Chernobyl following the nuclear meltdown 25 years ago, are part of an exhibition and event series taking place at the Ukrainian Institute in New York City through April 26, 2011, in remembrance of the anniversary of the disaster. The importance of the Chernobyl anniversary has been magnified by the ongoing nuclear crisis at the Fukishima power plant in Japan, and the human cost of nuclear power takes center stage in Norris’ images of men and children whose lives are marked by the difficult legacy of Chernobyl.

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