Leverkusen–All images ©Oliver Kern

Cultures and landscapes shape each other in distinctive ways, but the dynamic is often subtle, even mysterious. German photographer Oliver Kern has been exploring that dynamic in his native country by seeking “strangely familiar images from everyday German life” which “capture characteristic atmospheres.” He takes his photographs on the road, in parking lots, at events, or in supermarkets, focusing on the relationships between people, structures, and the landscape, which is “only ostensibly unchanging, [but] in a permanent state of reconstruction.” Not surprisingly, the often-elusive sense of place is in the details and discrete symbols, not the grand ones, which “have long lost their meaning in people’s everyday lives,” Kern says. He has collected about fifty images taken over the course of his travels since 2002 for his new book, A German View, released earlier this month by Hatje Cantz Verlag.–Courtesy of the publisher.

(more…)

“Attic Bedroom, Delhi, NY.” © Trevor Tondro.

The farmhouse, an icon of the leafy, winding roads and staggering farm lands of rural New England, is more than just an emblem of the American homestead. Many of these dwellings stand as relics of the Dutch, English, French and Scotch settlers who built these simple structures as early as the seventeenth century. This series of photographs, by Brooklyn, New York-based architectural photographer Trevor Tondro, were made for his forthcoming book, A Simpler Way of Life: Old Farmhouses of New York & New England, to be released by Norfleet Press in Fall 2013. His images are a chronicle of the cozy, rustic interiors and painterly exteriors of these modest structures, made by carpenters and farmers in the New York and New England countryside.

– Lindsay Comstock

(more…)

© Alaisdair Jardine. Baumraum, Andreas Wenning, Between Alder and Oak, Osnabrück, Germany.

What was it about tree houses that so appealed to us as children? The idea of secluding oneself in a space entirely our own—up in the air away from the adult world that was maddeningly always trying to pull us back to solid ground—was certainly a part of the allure. Being closer to the natural world, to the birds, squirrels and other creatures we saw roaming the tress, probably also caused us to imagine having our own little palace in the sky. One look at the marvelous and varied structures in Tree Houses: Fairy Tale Castles in the Air, a new book by architecture writer Philip Jodido published by Taschen, and we are transported back to childhood, and begin wondering just why it is we can’t live in a tree house as adults? The book provides readers a photographic tour of 50 of the best and most interesting tree houses around the world, which vary from rustic to modern and chic. The book also makes us wonder whether our childhood affinity for tree houses helped pave the way for the concern for ecological sustainability that has become ingrained in contemporary society.

(more…)

All photos © Joseph E. B. Elliott.

Many photographers have documented the monumental steel mills of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (one of more than a dozen US cities named for the holy site on the minds of Christians this day). They include Walker Evans, who photographed the city in the 1930s for the Farm Security Administration. Joseph E.B. Elliott, who specializes in photographing historic industrial and architectural sites, took more than 1,000 images of the mills from 1989 to 1996, when Bethlehem Steel closed down. His new book of photographs, The Steel, will be published in February by Columbia College Chicago Press. “I certainly feel that I followed the footsteps of Walker Evans,” says Elliott, who shot black-and-white film using a Horseman monorail and an old Linhof Techinika. “I tried to maintain Evans’ dispassionate stance and clarity, but occasionally slipped into a more romantic response to the overwhelming scale and beauty of the place.”

A professor of art at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Elliott has been published in Smithsonian, Wired,  Metropolis and other publications, and his photos are in the collection of the Library of Congress. “In that sense, they reside near Evans’ great FSA work,” he says.

(more…)

© Nick Frank

Many of Munich’s subway stations have distinctive architectural personalities, and local photographer Nick Frank brings some out in his striking series called Subway. Shooting the empty stations during off-peak hours, he trains his camera on vanishing points, and accentuates the bold colors, lines, graphics, and architectural details. The result is a collection of  dramatic, futuristic spaces that most of us Munich subway riders don’t see–at least not quite like this–but will certainly recognize. Frank hopes to take the project beyond Munich, photographing subway stations all over the world that make the most compelling visual backdrops to the everyday drama that occurs at much busier times of day. More of Frank’s subway images are at http://www.indiegogo.com/subways/. (more…)