All photos © Henry Wessel/ Pace MacGill Gallery.

Since the 1960s, Wessel has photographed vernacular scenes of the American West, particularly in California. Immediately drawn to the quality of light he encountered during a visit from New York to Los Angeles, Wessel moved cross-country to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1971. From stretches of dusty highway to modest California bungalows framed by telephone poles and palm trees, Wessel’s often spare and solitary images capture the idiosyncrasies and irony of American life with a wry objectivity. His photographs of parking lots, beach-goers, and shrubbery — all illuminated by the brilliance of Western light — find beauty and intrigue in the commonplace and document the social landscape in a manner that is casual yet formally compelling. An exhibition featuring 29 vintage photographs taken by Wessel from the late 1960s to the late 1980s opens tomorrow evening at the Pace MacGill gallery. The exhibition is on view until July 11, 2011.

-Pace MacGill Gallery

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All Photos © Risaku Suzuki/ Christophe Guye Galerie.

Bidding winter farewell and welcoming spring, Risaku Suzuki‘s (*1963, Japan) first European solo exhibition, Yuki – Sakura, at the Christophe Guye Galerie in Zurich presents photographs from various series of works focusing on the enticing, emblematically Japanese subjects such as the cherry blossoms. Suzuki‘s show coincides with the Sakura Celebration, one of the most popular spring events in Japan. Like the annual festival, Suzuki’s images celebrate tradition, renewal, and the inevitable passage of time from one season to the next. To see more of Suzuki‘s work click here.

- courtesy of Christophe Guye Galerie.

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All Photos © Carsten Peter/National Geographic. Above: The lava at Nyiragongo is made of an alkali-rich volcanic rock; its unusual composition may be a factor in the lava’s fluidity.

Photographer Carsten Peter descended into the fiery center of Nyiragongo—an active volcano towering over a city of one million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—for the April issue of National Geographic magazine.  See Carsten and his team explore the depths of Nyiragongo in Man vs. Volcano on the National Geographic channel. To see more of Carsten Peter’s work click here.

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All photos © Ken Shung.

New York based photographer Ken Shung says he set out to make images that embody the idea of the “Pretty Picture.” He captures disjunction, viewing social spaces in search of a magical decisive moment that shows something ominous, paradoxical, or timeless. “In this collection of images, I ask the question of when is a photograph just a pretty picture?” he says. The work is on exhibit at the New York Public Library at  331 E. 10th street New York City until tomorrow. To see more of Shung’s work click here.
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© Larry Louie

Fog enshrouds the abandoned Tripureshwar Mahadev Mandir Temple, a cultural heritage site in Nepal. It was built as a traditional Newari temple by Queen Lalita Tripura Sundari in 1818. Located in Kathmandu, there has been talk of restoring this veiled temple. Larry Louie‘s image is included in the World in Focus 2011 online gallery.