All Photos © Patrick Witty.

Patrick Witty, international picture editor at Time Magazine, first conceived his presidents project in 2007, just after Barack Obama announced his candidacy. At the time, Witty was working as a photo editor at The New York Times. He was also naming his son which led him to think about the importance of names.

Witty says, “This was the first conceptual portrait series I had undertaken and struggled to come up with a thread that would link the pictures. Ultimately I decided that the thread would be history—each photograph would make reference to a historic image of the president. Most of the references are made through body language or composition. Some are geographical or purely historical. I scoured the Internet researching photographs of presidents. For example, since George Washington was the first president, and the first in my series, I wanted to reference the very first portrait made of him, a painting from 1772 by Charles Willson Peale. The hand over the heart added another dimension to the picture, especially when considering where it was taken. Another Example is Calvin Coolidge, since he raised alpacas, I searched for a photograph of President Coolidge with animals. With baby Barack, it was easy, since there are very few pictures of President Obama as a child.”  Witty shot the project using a Crown Graphic 4×5 camera from the 1950’s that he said helped him gain the sympathy of his subjects, because the equipment seemed so cumbersome to set up. With each subject he recorded an interview that became part of the short multimedia pieces that were featured on the Times’ Lens blog.

Above:George Washington is in prison, serving three years on a weapons conviction. His pose mirrors the earliest known image of Washington, painted by Charles Willson Peale in 1772.

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All Photos © Paul McDonough

Paul McDonough arrived in New York City in 1967 with a 35mm camera and entrée, through childhood friend Tod Papageorge, to the photography workshops and social networks of street photographer Garry Winogrand. Emerging from an early career as a studio easel painter, McDonough found photographing on the streets of New York liberating: “It satisfied my sketching impulses… I learned to carry a camera everywhere, all the time, loaded with 400-speed film.” McDonough’s first monograph, Paul McDonough: New York Photographs 1968 – 1978, was published in November 2010 by Umbrage Editions, in conjunction with an exhibition at Sasha Wolf Gallery. – Umbrage.

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© Carrie Levy

Carrie Levy, New York based photographer and photo editor, has her third solo show with Daniel Cooney Fine Art opening today on February 17th. Levy says, “Being a female artist and the authority behind this work, I chose solely male subjects in order to enhance the submissive nature of the imagery.
You Before All questions the line that separates pain from pleasure. The work magnifies how in the moment it is hard to decipher between these two very different emotions. Both are intense, but are very much the opposite of another. The aim in this body of work is to ask the viewer to uncover which one of these emotions is behind a single frame and where he or she is more sympathetic.”  To see more of Levy’s work click here.

All Photos © Aydin Matlabi

Thousands of Iranians marched through the streets of Tehran to protest the disputed 2009 presidential election. These images captured by Aydin Matlabi were included in the PDN Photo Annual 2010 online gallery. The 2011 Contest is currently open for entries until February 21.

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All Photos © Landon Nordeman. Above: Karen Biehl, right, the owner of Eli the Chihuahua.

The Westminster Kennel Club Dog show is the super bowl of dog shows. Only the Kentucky Derby has existed longer. Landon Nordeman, 2006 PDN’s 30, was given the opportunity to photograph it for The New Yorker last year (where he’s a contributing photographer) and is currently shooting it now, in its 135th annual running of the show. Nordeman likes to work in places where people flock together to participate in a shared cultural experience, often to celebrate their love for something such as dogs, Elvis or fashion week. He believes that interesting photographs exist everywhere – it’s just a matter of seeing them. To see more of Nordeman’s work click here.

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