All photos © Jeff Sheng

“For the past year, I have been photographing men and women in the United States military who are closeted and affected by the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy banning gays and lesbians from openly serving in the United States armed forces. In making these portraits, I wanted to create images that gave recognition to these individuals for their service and not ruin their careers by exposing their identity. Most, if not all, of the subjects have done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Jeff Sheng’s portraits were included in the PDN Photo Annual 2010 online gallery.

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All photos © Julia Gillard.

This image above,”Model Ship”, taken on Memorial Day in Asbury Park, NJ  is from Julia Gillard’s American Holidays series. To see more from this project click here. (more…)

All Photos © Jake Rajs, Courtesy of The Monacelli Press. This image: Havasupai Indian Reservation in Arizona.

Jake Rajs’ recently published book, Carved by Time, captures the magnificence of the the southwestern landscape. ” There’s no place like the Desert Southwest. It’s a land of parched canyons, bleached solitudes, and bulwarks of intoxicating rock,” Hampton Sides writes in the book’s introduction. “It’s the country made famous by Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and Georgia O’Keeffe, a queer world of upheaval and stark finality cooked in an unforgiving forge. The scale of its dwarfs human beings, not only spatially  but also chronologically, suggesting chasms of time that mock our relevance in the story of creation.”

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© Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin / T: The New York Times Style Magazine

Icelandic actress-musician Björk’s whimsical personality shines through in this hirsute portrait by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin. More images from their series, “Hearts of Palme,” can be seen in the PDN Photo Annual 2010 winners gallery.

© Jonathan Singer / Audubon

An image from “Petal Pushers,” a photo essay on flowers by Jonathan Singer for Audubon magazine. More images from Singer can be seen in the PDN Photo Annual 2010 online gallery.