© Jill Waterman.  Eva as Kukeri, New Year 2012 in Razlog, Bulgaria.

For the past 30 years, Jill Waterman has traveled annually to a different location to photograph traditional celebrations of the New Year. A year ago, she photographed in the mountain village of Razlog, Bulgaria, where goat-skin clad creatures called Kukeri and exuberant villagers in ceremonial Turkish attire parade through the streets on January 1 in a vigorous dance to ward off evil spirits.

Waterman, author of the 2008 book Night & Low Light Photography and editor for PDN Custom Media, is now in the mountains near Salzburg, Austria, to document the ominous masked figures called Perchten that visit small local villages in “the raw nights” between Christmas and Epiphany on January 6.

For more of Waterman’s New Year’s images from around the world, visit www.NewYearPhotos.com. (more…)

© Logan White

The group photography exhibit The Pleasure Is All Mine recently opened in Chelsea to a packed house. Organized by the curatorial duo Finch & Ada, the show is a direct response to a scarcity of happiness the curators had observed in the contemporary fine art photography landscape.  “We felt that at its core, an emotion such as happiness was not viewed as a serious topic. We set out to find artists with artworks that would create a “happy place” and illustrate happiness and pleasure in a variety techniques.”

Two satellite events hosted this week add to the festive mix, Wednesday evening’s emerging collector’s symposium Instant Gratification – The Pleasures of Art Collecting and an Afternoon with the Artists on Saturday from 3 to 5 pm. Full details are available on the Finch & Ada Web site.  -Jill Waterman

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© Jill Waterman

On December 31, 1983 Jill Waterman began a long term project to photograph New Year’s celebrations in cities around the world. For more than 25 years her documentation has spanned many countries, cultures and events: from waiting for midnight in Paris; to religious observances on the beach in Brazil; to the Millennium celebration in Bethlehem; to this image of fireworks over Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle from 1999.

Shooting from an adjacent window that offered a panoramic view, Jill made this image within seconds of the firework’s first burst, before the scene became polluted by smoke accumulating in the air over time. For more tips for success when shooting fireworks, as well as many other nighttime subjects, check out Jill’s book Night and Low Light Photography.

And to see more of her New Year’s Eve images, visit NPR’s The Picture Show blog , or click here.