Curio Cabinet / Photo Curio

South African photographer Daniel Naudé may not be a cowboy, but he's certainly got a passion for cattle. Naudé traveled to Uganda in 2012 to photograph the long-horned Ankole cattle (including the one above). The species has been considered sacred for centuries; in the 1700s, Ankole with the biggest horns were set aside for royalty, earning the breed the name "cattle of the kings." Prized for their rich, creamy milk, which Ugandans used to make yogurt and butter, they were rarely slaughtered. But in recent years, cross-breeding to boost milk production has reduced the number of pure Ankole; they're projected to go extinct within the next four decades. Before they fade out, Naudé wanted to document the majestic faces and unusual, crescent moon-shaped prongs that have earned them the reverence of local communities. His candid shots portray the creatures in various moods: some images show a herd of serious-looking Ankole, while others capture a sole creature being playful. After photographing the Ankole, Naudé traveled to India and Madagascar to explore other holy cattle breeds. In 2016, his moving images were published as a collection called Sightings of the Sacred. We're praying we can get our hands on a copy!
 

Below: a herd of Ankole cattle in Uganda; a cow in India's Tamil Nadu region whose horns have been painted blue in preparation for a religious festival; the photographer gets an eyeful in Madagascar.
 

Image credit & copyright: Daniel Naudé / Prestel
 

Girl power! Photographer Rania Matar creates striking, evocative portraits of girls and women at every stage of life. In her work, she is particularly interested in transitional periods, like adolescence and middle age. Yasmine 12, Beirut, Lebanon, 2012, above, depicts a girl balancing on the thin edge between child and adulthood. Engulfed in stereotypical trappings of femininity (furry throw, fandom pillows, nail polish), Yasmine is still chubby-faced and childish; we can easily imagine her abandoning her quiet pose and running out to play. At the same time, like the girls in the photos below, her gaze is direct—if slightly wary; all these girls have clearly seen something of life, despite their youth. Matar was born in Lebanon and emigrated to the U.S. in 1984; she takes photographs in both countries, but believes that most of the issues women face are universal. Matar didn't intentionally set out to make girls and women her primary focus, though. She suspects her work evolved in that direction because she lost her own mother when she was only three and is fascinated by the concept of motherhood. "In a way, I photograph all my subjects as if they were my daughters," she says—which likely explains the warm and unsentimentally intimate nature of the images she creates.  

The exhibit In Her Image: Photographs by Rania Matar is on display at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, through June 17th.
 

Below: Maryam 9, Beirut, Lebanon, 2011, and Samira 15, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut Lebanon, 2015.
 

Image credit & copyright: Rania Matar, Robert Klein Gallery; C. Grimaldis Gallery
 

Three days after Robert F. Kennedy was shot on June 5, 1968, photographer Paul Fusco boarded the train that would carry the senator's body from New York to Washington D.C. Fusco was on assignment for Look magazine to cover RFK's burial at Arlington Cemetery. As the convoy traveled south, he was astonished to see quiet crowds lining up along the tracks to pay their respects. Fusco opened his window and began shooting photos. In images like Untitled, above, still figures appear against a blurred background, their shock and sadness deftly captured in the moment the train rushed by. Coming just two months after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s slaying and five years after his brother's assassination, Kennedy's murder stunned the country. He'd announced his run for the presidency just months before, and was killed right after winning the California primary. For many, his candidacy sparked optimism for the future; as Senator, he supported civil rights, traveled to impoverished regions of the country, and spoke out against the war in Vietnam. His death helped pave the way for Richard Nixon's election, ushering in the escalation of the war and the Watergate scandal. Of course, the people who gathered to see the funeral train had no idea what lay ahead. They'd just come to say a simple goodbye.  

The Train: RFK's Last Journey will be showing at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through June 10, 2018.

 
Below: more photos from the funeral train by Paul Fusco.

 

Image credit & copyright: Photographs by Paul Fusco, Magnum Photos; Courtesy Danziger Gallery
 

Rain or shine, the Commonwealth Games audience would not be deterred from their goal of watching their favorite swimmers compete. The 2018 Commonwealth Games are taking place in Queensland, on Australia's Gold Coast, from April 4th through 17th. It's an event similar to the Summer Olympics, where athletes come together every four years to represent their home countries and compete for medals—but participation is restricted to the Commonwealth of Nations, which comprises 53 current and former British territories. This crowd of waterproof poncho-clad viewers had a lot to cheer about; in spite of the unfavorable weather, their native Australians took home 28 gold medals—with 73 medals total—for swimming programs. It's a good sign for Australian swimmers looking to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, even if the skies did rain on their reign!
 

Image credit & copyright: Quinn Rooney / Getty Images
 

Wow… is that a still frame from Blade Runner? German photographer and design director Mark Siegemund uses his aerial drone to photograph Shanghai's rapidly-evolving, futuristic cityscape during dusk and dawn. Shown above, the heart of the swelling metropolis is divided into two parts: on one side of the Huangpu River is the towering Pudong financial district (foreground), and on the other, an old sector called Puxi (background). In Puxi, there are ancient walkways and pagoda roofs; in Pudong, loom skyscrapers like the 2,073-foot-tall Shanghai Tower. But sadly, the furious modernization that revolutionized Pudong is now seeping into Puxi's traditional neighborhoods, to the frustration of many of Shanghai's 24 million inhabitants. Siegemund himself laments the continuing loss of these historic communities: "I hope [the neighborhoods] will prevail forever and overcome the endless urbanization process!" he said on Instagram. Though he was a foreigner when he started photographing Shanghai, Siegemund has since fallen in love with the city, and become a permanent resident. And who can blame him? Shanghai is a city slicker's dream home—even if it is outgrowing its shoes!
 

Below: more drone photos of sprawling Shanghai, China.
 

Image credit & copyright: Mark Siegemund
 

Gardening on a spring day can be fun, but aboard the International Space Station, it's out of this world! In 2016, Astronaut Scott Kelly and his crew grew the first zinnia flowers in space, but not without a few perilous first attempts. The zinnias were the third crop grown in the Veggie plant growth facility, after an initial seeding that failed, and a second that successfully produced red romaine lettuce. Zinnias were chosen because they would give scientists information about the growth cycle of plants in microgravity, as they are highly sensitive to light and environmental changes. Within weeks, the zinnias began to show signs of mold and curling in the leaves, which indicated over-humidification and flooding in the roots. After excessive fan circulation left the crops dehydrated, Kelly took matters into his own hands, adjusting pre-planned watering cycles to meet the plant's delicate needs. After reinvigorating the growth process, Kelly took this photo and shared it via social media, letting us terrestrial dwellers know that life in space is definitely in full bloom!

 

Image credit & copyright: NASA
 

It's Flashback Friday (the 13th)! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

It might be cold outside, but the Tunnel of Love near Klevan, Ukraine is a hot travel destination for amorous couples. Legend has it that if two lovers walk together down the three-mile path, their tenderest wishes will come true. Romantic superstitions aside, the trail's actual history is a bit more complicated. The unique, densely-forested shape was likely created during the Cold War: a running train track lines the tunnel's floor and leads to a military base. Trees were planted alongside the tracks to protect the location and transportation of military gear. The arched shape is currently maintained by local companies, and one of them use the passage to run a plywood supply line several times a day. But getting trains through the Tunnel of Love can sometimes be perilous. As vehicles approach, tourists line up with their cameras along the narrow path to get the perfect shot. As a result, locals are learning to balance the rise in tourism while simultaneously maintaining the active railway. Because sometimes love hurts, and love scars, but it doesn't need to do that in the Tunnel of Love!

 

Below: the Tunnel of Love in winter; a train conductor keeps an eye on the railroad path.
 

Image credit & copyright: Oleg Gordienko, Amos Chapple
 

So that's where all the cool kids used to kick it! Several literary icons frequented Parisian cafe Aux Deux Magots on Boulevard Saint-Germain in the 1950s and '60s, including poet John Ashbery, James Baldwin, and Julia Child. Ashbery had a special relationship with this image in particular, taken by Chilean photographer Sergio Larrain in 1959. He was moved by the photo's accurate depiction of the era, with the city's well-dressed residents either sipping coffee, parking their fancy wheels, or people-watching on this main thoroughfare. The poet also admired the image's small moments of urban connection, like the two men huddling around their friend's roadster in the foreground. On an art critic's salary, Ashbery himself spent more time walking rather than driving; he would go on strolls through the city he had long dreamed of living in. His expectations of Paris did not disappoint. Ashbery produced two poetry collections there; in one of them, The Tennis Court Oath, he debuted an aesthetic style that he would go on to use in many of his later works. After he returned to the United States in the late 1960s, Ashbery kept a copy of this image above his desk to remember his time in Paris. Quel dommage that he couldn't stay at Aux Deux Magots forever!
 

Below: John Ashbery as a young man.
 

Image credit & copyright: Sergio Larrain and John Ashbery
 

Imogen Cunningham certainly knew how to make a harp sing. Born this week in 1883, Cunningham was one of America's longest-working female photographers. In this 1935 photograph called Three Harps, she used experimental techniques to emphasize the many steps involved in making music. The image relies on multiple exposure to convey the musician's graceful movements and the tune's various notes; to obtain this effect, Cunningham layered three negatives from the same shoot, a technique she often used in still lifes. She didn't stop at the musical process itself; throughout her seven-decade career, the Seattle native photographed notable women across creative fields including Martha Graham, Frida Kahlo, and Gertrude Stein. Though named after a heroine from a Shakespeare play, Cunningham herself was blunt and down-to-earth. (She once recounted the following incident from her days as a portrait photographer: "A woman said to me when she first sat down, You're photographing the wrong side of my face. I said: Oh, is there one?") We're lucky she was around to guide the path for so many creative women!
 

Below: Cunningham's striking portraits of Martha Graham, Frida Kahlo, and Gertrude Stein.
 

Image credit & copyright: Imogen Cunningham
 

Some photographers' work makes us think, "I could have taken that picture!" But Markus Brunetti doesn't make it look easy, not for a second. The German photographer creates meticulously rendered images of facades of beautiful old churches, like the picture of Amiens, Cathédrale Notre-Dame, 2009–2016, above. Brunetti takes thousands of high-resolution images of each facade, capturing every minute detail. He digitally assembles the close-up photos, removing modern items like cars and street lamps, to create a completed, hyper-real image. On display at the Yossi Milo Gallery through April 24th, these works are as detailed as engravings made by 17th-century European artists. Brunetti's is a painstaking process; it typically takes him a year or more to complete an image. He compares his art to that of the architects and laborers who originally worked on the buildings centuries ago. Says Brunetti, "I try to work on this series with the same spirit and patience they must have had when starting to work on those now historic monuments."
 

Below: Potsdam, Alexander-Newski-Gedächtniskirche, 2015–2017, and Ribeira de Pena, Igreja Matriz do Salvador, 2013–2017.
 

Image credit & copyright: Markus Brunetti, Courtesy of Yossi Milo Gallery
 

This photo of Martin Luther King Jr.'s family was taken 50 years ago, the day after his assassination. The family had just disembarked the plane carrying his coffin back from Memphis to Atlanta, Georgia. According to reports, the four children had just viewed King's body; their mother wanted them to do so in the privacy of the plane before they faced the waiting crowds. The oldest child, Yolanda, was 12; the youngest, Bernice, just five. In the photo, Coretta Scott King is dignified and dry-eyed; it is the expression she showed the world during King's funeral, and in the years afterward as she carried on his legacy. She hid her tears even from her children: "I would wake up in the morning, have my cry, then go in to them," she would later say. "The children saw me going forward." In the days to come, King's children would attend their father's funeral and hear him eulogized as a hero by leaders around the world. They would see riots sweep the country as angry crowds mourned his loss. But in this moment, as they huddle together before the camera, they are just four young children, in shock and missing their dad.  

Below: the King family, accompanied by King's brother, A.D., and Ralph Abernathy, walk in the funeral procession; mourners wait in line at Spelman College to pay their respects. .
 

Image credit & copyright: Harry Benson; AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi; AP Photo/Jack Thornell
 

Every year, the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) puts on its annual Photography and Imaging Competition, which aspires to showcase the beauty of scientific discoveries. This year's winning image is of metastatic melanoma cells photographed by Dr. Chris Bakal, a Reader of Cell Form at the ICR. Bakal describes these cancer cells as "master shape-shifters." As cancer invades the body, these unique cells journey across different tissue, rapidly adapting to each new environment. Bakal's image shows metastatic melanoma cells traversing new tissue, using microbial adhesions—or cellular grips (marked in blue)—as they morph to meet the demands of the fresh host tissue. As lay people, we may find the image frightening, but to scientists, it captures a sense of motion that underscores life's beauty and fragility. The ICR hopes that images like Bakal's, and those of past and future competitions, will provide deeper insight into the behaviors of these dynamic cancer cells. Perhaps it will take an aesthetic eye for us to finally defeat cancer, once and for all.
 

Below: a tankyrase protein's crystalline structure; breast cancer cells escape the blood vessel layer; tumor cells interacting with their surroundings.
 

Image credit & copyright: Dr Chris Bakal and Oliver Inge / Dr Sebastian Guettler / Dr Maxine Lam / Dr David Mansfield
 

Ted Spagna understood shuteye like the back of his hand. In the 1970s and 1980s, the sleep photographer documented dozens of subjects with time-lapse cameras installed over their beds. Featured above is Dr. Allan Hobson, a neurophysiologist at Harvard, alongside his wife in 1977. Hobson and other researchers examined Spagna's photos to confirm the length of the sleep cycle (90 minutes) as well as the fact that most people don't move while dreaming. But they do plenty of shifting around at other points in the night, as the images above show. In one shot, Hobson's pillow is askew and his head precariously close to the edge of the bed. Spagna's pictures have drawn comparisons with
Eadweard Muybridge's shots of animals in motion; both photographers created art that also revealed something about science and behavior. The weirdness of human sleep never ceased to fascinate Spagna, who used himself as his initial subject. "You look into the mirror every day and you think you know yourself," he said in an interview a few years before his death. "I saw in those pictures another self that I didn't know existed." Tomorrow being Sunday, we'll let our other selves hit the snooze button!
 

Below: Peter & Cat, a series of images taken in 1979 that show a man whose cat jumps onto his bed for a portion of the night; Christian & Otis, taken by Spagna's nephew in 2013.

 

Image credit & copyright: The Ted Spagna Project and Ron Eldridge / Sleep Snapshots
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy this favorite from the Curio Cabinet archives.
 

Who loves you, baby? In this photo, Black Skimmer, St. Pete, Florida, a baby black skimmer appears to be hugging its parent's bill. The photo, taken by Tampa-based photographer Thomas Chadwick, was Second Runner-Up in The Nature Conservancy's 2017 photo contest. Chadwick has been photographing the same black skimmer colony for years: he typically follows a single nest, returning day after day to observe adult birds sitting on eggs, eggs hatching, and hatchlings venturing into the world. The birds have become so accustomed to his presence that they occasionally lie in his shadow to get out of the searing Florida sun. Before he took this photo, Chadwick observed the baby chick being pushed aside and pecked by an older sibling. The larger chick often stole the smaller one's food. The day of the photo, one of the black skimmer parents brought food directly to the smaller chick. The tiny skimmer eagerly consumed the meal, then ran to its parent for the embrace. We don't know know anything about the hearts of birds—but this sure looks like love.  

Below: winning image for the Nature Conservancy's 2017 Photo Contest: Darter Bathing by Geo Joost.
 

Image credit & copyright: Thomas Chadwick; Geo Jooste
 

This little one was born into a courtly pedigree. In early December, a female okapi at the London Zoo gave birth to a stripey-legged calf named after Prince Harry's fiancée, Meghan Markle. Her birth took about 30 minutes, and it took but another half hour for her to begin walking. Meghan might resemble a zebra because of her stripes, but okapis are actually the last living relatives of the giraffe family. Sometimes called forest giraffes, or zebra giraffes, okapis are native to the Democratic Republic of Congo and use their thick brown hides to camouflage themselves in dense rainforests. As an endangered species, Okapis face a number of challenges to their survival, including poaching and gold mining in their natural habitat. Thankfully, the Zoological Society of London teamed up with other conservation partners in 2016 as part of a 10-year strategy to implement protections which would aid the survival of the species. As for Meghan, biologists at the zoo are hoping her auspicious name will lead to a partnership with the young male okapi named—what else—Harry!

 

Image credit & copyright: WENN.com
 

When photographer Joel Meyerowitz first started taking photos, he didn't know color wasn't cool. It was the 1960s, and serious photographers shot in black and white. Color photography was considered amateurish and utilitarian; good for family photos and advertising, but not for art. Regardless, Meyerowitz insisted on using hues: "... It seemed to me the world was in color and you'd take pictures of the world as it looked," he once said. With images like New York City, 1963, above, Meyerowitz earned a reputation as a street photographer in the tradition of Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson. The artist, who turned 80 this year, has spent years capturing the shifting moods and demographics of his beloved New York City, including the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. His recently-published book, Joel Meyerowitz: Where I Find Myself, documents his extraordinary body of work—and his success in banishing the bias against color once and for all.
 

Below: New York City, 1975, and Five More Found, New York City, 2001, by Joel Meyerowitz.
 

Image credit & copyright: Joel Meyerowitz
 

Whip it, whip it good. While photographer Thong Huu's Breakfast at the Weekly Market was announced the grand prize winner of the 15th Annual Smithsonian Photo Contest last week, the Curio Cabinet's "Most Righteous Award" goes to Sirsendu Gayen's A Perfect Flutter. The pic shows a man wafting wet garments at the Gangasagar Mela festival in India, where thousands of Hindu pilgrims dip themselves in the holy Ganges River to cleanse themselves of sin. In the man's hand are saris—garments designed to wrap around women, at the shoulder—drenched from the purification rite. The Gangasagar Mela fair takes place in January, and offers devout Hindus the chance to attain moksha, or blissful freedom from Hinduism's endless rebirth cycle. Lucky for Gayen, he snagged this photo just as the man whipped these saris about with the flare of a Houdini!
 

Image credit & copyright: Sirsendu Gayen
 

The past is no longer black and white, but living color. Digital artist Marina Amaral colorizes profound historical photos, be they shots of old New York City or somber depictions of war. She recently published the last photos ever taken of a Polish girl deported to Auschwitz, 14-year-old Czeslawa Kwoka. The images were originally taken in 1942 by Wilhelm Brasse, a fellow prisoner forced to take "identity pictures" by the Nazis. Despite taking as many as 50,000 portraits, Brasse recalled Kwoka in vivid detail decades later. The girl couldn't understand the orders of her German captors, he said, "This woman Kapo (a prisoner overseer) took a stick and beat [Kwoka] about the face… Before the photograph was taken, the girl dried her tears and the blood from the cut on her lip." Kwoka was just one of 230,000 children and adolescents sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau from 1940 to 1945, and like many, she would die there. For Amaral, these polychromatic reproductions are meant to give new life to retrospective photos in our color-saturated modernity and do justice to their subjects' stories. Especially those whose stories are tragically cut short.
 

Below: Banana docks, New York, ca. 1890-1910; before and after of an English orphan sitting among the ruins of London in 1945; before and after of a victim of an American bombing on a stretcher.
 

Image credit & copyright: Marina Amaral
 

Need a ride? Then hop in—but take those shoes off first! Photographer Todd Antony travels the world documenting unique subcultures, including the garishly ornamented trucks of dekotora. Translating to "decorated trucks," dekotora originated in the 1970s after a film series titled Truck Rascals inspired a generation of Japanese men to royally trick out their rides. Pictured above is a man who has hung a glass chandelier in his truck's cab to match the patterned fabrics and frills. "According to [the drivers], the design process basically doesn't finish. It just keeps evolving over time as they try new things. You can spend as much as $100,000 [decorating] a truck," said Antony. Junichi Tajima, the chairman of Utamaro-kai Association of Dekotora drivers, says the value of dekotora lies not in the glitz or money, but in the spiritual value of the trucks. The longer a truck remains with a driver, the more of the driver's personality it takes on—meaning it's uncommon for drivers to sell them. And why would they, when there's a lifetime of velvet wallpaper and superfluous light fixtures to keep adding to the vehicle!
 

Below: the cabs of other dekotora trucks.
 

Image credit & copyright: Todd Antony
 

Care for a piece of fruit? Daniel Gordon's photos, like Clementines, above, have a delicious depth and color that makes us want to take a bite. But the fruit and bowl shown here are actually made of paper. The artist takes images from the internet and constructs elaborate, three-dimensional tableaus, often set against patterned backgrounds, then photographs them. Gordon's work is included in the exhibit, Cut! Paper Play in Contemporary Photography, at the Getty Center in Los Angeles through May 27th. The exhibit features works by six photographers who manipulate paper in different ways to create hybrid, often surreal images. Gordon's work has been described as a mash-up of sculpture, collage, and photography, and his shapes and colors are influenced by both Cubism, which experiments with perspective, and Fauvism, which emphasizes intense color. Still, Gordon feels most comfortable behind the lens. "Everything I make stems from my initial and continued interest in the medium of photography," he once wrote. So long as the medium keeps bearing fruit, there's no reason for him to stop!
 

Below: Still Life With Cherry Blossoms and Zucchini by Daniel Gordon.
 

Image credit & copyright: Daniel Gordon and the M+B Gallery