On Friday, January 13th, from 6-10PM the LUCEO cooperative is hosting their third annual exhibition at 25CPW in New York City. Titled “Greater Than The Sum”, the exhibition highlights the group’s ability to connect, collaborate and create. LUCEO seeks to engage the audience, making them the final arbiter in the work. Breaking from tradition, their new exhibition “Greater Than The Sum” combines a broad curation of each photographers work into one 163′ run that spans the entire gallery. Rather than selling individual prints, LUCEO is selling CUTS which give guests the opportunity to hand-cut a 24×24″ section of the print they most want. The show also consists of an interactive installation and a soundscape scored by composer Tyler Strickland.

For those that can’t attend in person, you can still reserve a CUT and LUCEO will have a stand-in make the cut for you, or you can purchase a limited edition catalogue from the LUCEO store. The catalogue also includes a download score for the unique soundscape.

-courtesy LUCEO.

The futuristic and almost extra-terrestrial forms of Santiago Calatrava’s Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias in Valencia, Spain, were like a magnet to photographer Mark Weinberg. After extensively researching this unique complex of buildings and reading about the architect and his inspiration, Mark went to photograph it. Santiago Calatrava has stated that, “You are only bound in terms of the limits you set.” These buildings are truly unlike anything else. Calatrava’s work is clearly not constrained by the limits common to most architecture.

Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha is a major influence on Swiss photographer Fred Mayer’s life and work over a six-decade photographic career. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hesse’s death, Mayer traveled with his wife Ilse to Varanasi, India, to retrace in images the life of Hesse’s protagonist in the time of Buddha. Their personal, spiritual response to the novel features local subjects acting out scenes for the camera. With an endorsement from Hesse’s grandson Silver Hesse adding cachet, in September 2011 Mayer self-published a 280-page homage to Hesse in a jubilee edition with Blurb. Mayer’s work is one of twenty notable projects featured in the seventh annual Best of ASMP, a publication of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). From Thursday, October 27 to Saturday, October 29 ASMP will be an exhibitor at PDN’s PhotoPlus Expo at the Jacob Javits Center in New York. Stop by booth #1276 to pick up the print edition of the Best of ASMP or read extended interviews with all twenty featured photographers here.

During the 1950s, Martin Karplus captured the lush hues of the Southwest’s culture and landscapes during his travels there as a post-doctorate fellow. Kodachrome may be gone, but its vivid color qualities lives on through his works which will be exhibited in Stoneham Gallery of the Griffin Museum from Jan.–Feb. 2012, as well as in three additional venues during the next two years featuring different bodies of work. Karplus is currently a Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and Biophysics at Harvard and showed his work as a participant at this year’s Photolucida in Portland, Oregon.

“We hiked 12 miles to get to this remote beachbreak, (pictured above)” says California-based surf photographer Chris Burkard. “It was worth every step.”  A staff photographer for Surfer Magazine, Burkard spends most of his time traveling, and strives to document not only the action, but the in-between moments and the lifestyle of the sport.

Mike Losness laying into a wave against a perfect Central California sunset.

“It seems that every trip to Mexico either brings good stories or good waves,” Burkard says. “On this trip we were lucky enough to get both, as Ben Bourgeois’s carve is overshadowed by the size of the rocks.”

The cold waters of Iceland having very little effect on Mike Losness. This was one of the few times houses were seen on our entire trip.

Josef Hoflehner began his Jet Airliner series in early 2009. Captioned “Air France Airbus A340-300, arriving from Paris-Charles de Gaulle,” this photograph from 2011 was captured in a wide-angle format as a plane roared over a beach on its way to land. The scene is completely unstaged, making this moment all the more extraordinary.

“Jet Airliner #44″ is part of a group exhibition at Bonni Benrubi Gallery in New York that runs until September 10.

New York City based Dustin Aksland is an emerging editorial and commercial photographer who recently spent five weeks photographing throughout New Delhi, Agra, Varanasi and Mumbai. He says, “I was most drawn to the quieter images I had taken at the beginning of my trip documenting the musicians and laborers working and roaming the harsh but beautiful Rajasthan region of India.” The attached shot was made while camping in the Thar desert. As the sun began to set every evening, musicians, dancers and snake charmers would arrive from nearby villages to perform. These two musicians are brothers who’ve been traveling and playing together since they were kids.  The other performers would leave late in the night when finished but these two brothers camped out with us for 3 nights before heading out to the next village.

© Gregg Bleakney

How did the monkey cross the road? By performing a high voltage wire routine. Gregg Bleakney caught the primate’s act while in Bundi, India. This image is included in the World in Focus 2011 online gallery. The 2012 Contest is currently open for entries until September 8, but enter today to avoid late fees. A People’s Choice winner will also be selected.