Photography

At first glance, it’s simply a charming shot of a bird. A young American oystercatcher, to be precise, still fluffy and scruffy around the edges, standing on a patch of dark sand, its orange bill glowing in the low sun. But spend a few more moments taking everything in, and you’ll discover a different story. The bird is surrounded by dried palm fronds and rocks, with a length of bright…

With Native American Heritage Month underway, what better time to celebrate the recent accomplishment of photographer Curtis Ray Benally, an enrolled member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation in New Mexico. Benally, who goes by the nickname Turkeyboy, was recently selected as one of the photographers to feature in The Fifty – an ongoing project by photography platform VSCO, celebrating photographers…

When the American fine art photographer Lara Porzak’s mother survived a massive stroke, her memory was badly affected. As anyone with a relative who suffers memory problems will know, it helps enormously if they can be surrounded by familiar things. So Porzak did what came naturally. As she recounts in her new book, The Chemistry of Memory: “I taped pictures of our loved ones to the walls…

It might take a moment for you to notice the kayaker in the picture above. What your eye will focus on first will be a vast wall of blue-white ice, running the full width of the frame, with a flat white sky above it and dark, churning water below. Eventually, though, you’ll spot a tiny figure in a boat tipped steeply downward, plummeting down a waterfall that streams through a notch in the…