Curio Cabinet / Photo Curio

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

Sometimes big things come in small packages. We're taking a look at a whole different side of the famous baby photographer of the '90s, Anne Geddes. While Geddes blew up after an Oprah appearance, she claims sales of her work have slowed down due to the changing online market for photography. Since about 2015, she has focused on behind-the-scenes Patreon work, and her role as an ambassador for the March of Dimes, a global project which supports prematurely-born babies. Above is Jack Holding Maneesha, an image Geddes took in 1993 and used as promotional material for the 2014 World Prematurity Day. Little Maneesha was finally going home after a long stay in the hospital when Geddes captured the image of the sleeping little girl in her father's strong hands. The tenderness, fragility, and beauty of Jack Holding Maneesha is a testament to Geddes' impeccable eye for understanding her subjects: "[We need to teach children] the values of harmony, love, understanding, tolerance, and an appreciation of other cultures now,'' she once said. "Because every newborn baby represents our eternal chance at new beginnings."
Image credit & copyright: Anne Geddes / March of Dimes

No, this photo isn’t promotional material for James Cameron’s Avatar sequel! These four mushrooms may appear alien, with their bright blue color and odd shapes, but they grow right here on earth. It’s just that they’re so small, most people would never notice them, which is where American photographer Alison Pollack comes in. She’s recently grown popular online for her beautiful photos of tiny mushrooms and slime molds, or Myxomycetes. Through her macro lens, these organisms burst to full-sized, colorful life. The species above, chlorociboria aeruginascens, tends to grow on decayed logs and sticks, to a maximum height of around 2 millimeters.
 

The slime molds that Pollack photographs are a different type of life altogether. They’re part of the Protista Kingdom, meaning they’re neither plant, animal, nor fungi. Tiny mushrooms and slime molds are rarely ever photographed, which is why Pollack is especially passionate about doing so. In an interview with Petapixel, she explained, “I am especially drawn to the tiny ones, and the detail that cannot be seen by the naked eye. My passion is to photograph these tiny organisms and show people how amazing and beautiful they are!” Safe to say Pollack has accomplished that goal!
 

[Image description: A macro photo of four oddly-shaped bright blue mushrooms growing on a dark, moist surface. ] Credit & copyright: Alison Pollack
 

Below: two more of Pollack’s photos, the first of young Physarum citrinum slime molds, the second of Scutellinia fungus.

Written by: Maria C.

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

When these little muscle men were posing for the camera 40 years ago, they probably never imagined they'd be featured in The New York Times. Yet that's exactly where they are, with selections from nearly 3,000 color slide subjects in an unearthed collection titled Scenes Unseen: The Summer of '78. Most of the photos were taken between August and November that year, when the Times was on strike. This left staff photographers with time to do freelance work for the city parks commissioner, Gordon J. Davis, who asked for photos of New York City parks, and people in them. The spirit they they captured seems like a bygone novelty these days: kids and adults without cell phones, gathering to picnic, frolic in the water, play double-dutch jump rope, and make new connections. The late '70s and '80s in New York is generally thought of as an era when a combination of high crime rates, new drug epidemics, white flight, and failing infrastructure contributed to the city's decline. These lost and finally found-photos show us how New Yorkers weren't complacent with that narrative, especially when there was fun to be had in exploring the five boroughs.
 

Below: more summer revelers from Scenes Unseen: The Summer of '78, which recently closed at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park.
 

Image credit & copyright: Paul Hosefros, Joyce Dopkeen, New York Times
 

It’s not crowded, it’s cozy! Australian small businesses really know how to get the most out of compact spaces, and Australian photographer David Wadelton is an expert at capturing their charm on camera. His newest book, Small Business, is filled with photos of independently-run stores and restaurants in and around his hometown of Melbourne. In the image above, Patti Shoes, a small business in Lalor, a suburb of Melbourne, is packed floor-to-ceiling with merchandise. Shoes fill practically every inch of floor and shelf space, interspersed with clothing and even a saint statue, while purses dangle from the ceiling overhead. Wadelton is known for his reluctance to touch-up photos with digital software, meaning that each business he captures is allowed to have its own lighting, color saturation, and character. Many of the businesses in his new book, such as Monarch Cakes in the Melbourne suburb of St. Kilda, have been around since the 1930s or earlier. Yet many of them have also closed since Wadelton photographed them, mostly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. That makes Wadelton’s mission to capture the true flavor of Melbourne for posterity all the more important!
 

[Image description: a small shoe store in Melbourne Australia. It’s floor and walls are packed with shoes. Purses hang overhead.] Credit & copyright: David Wadelton
 

Below: two more of Wadelton’s Melbourne small business photos, of A Foukis Professional Men’s Hair Stylist and Monarch Cakes.

Written by: Maria C.

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

Why struggle tossing rings or balls in a carnival game when there are plenty of fish to go around on scooters! Shown above is A Fish Seller Displays His Goods by London-based photographer Jon Enoch, which won the Grand Prize in Smithsonian Magazine's 17th annual photo contest. It shows a merchant in Hanoi, Vietnam, displaying a delivery of colorful pet fish, but not at a store or stall, as one might expect. The rack of aquatic wares is so wide and tottering, the driver of the scooter is completely obscured, save for his two outspread legs propping up the ride. Scooter deliveries of unusual goods are a common sight in Hanoi, and Enoch spent a week hailing various riders around the city to convince them to pose for shots. His work certainly paid off—this fish-selling motorist was destined to hook the Smithsonian's Grand Prize!
 

Below: two more photos from Smithsonian magazine’s 17th annual photo contest, Aerial Combat by Suranjan Mukherjee and Rhino Ranger by Davis Huber.
 

Image credit & copyright: Jon Enoch/Suranjan Mukherjee/Davis Huber/Smithsonian
 

Hey, could someone get this guy off of me? The hummingbird above seems to be calling for help after attracting an unwanted guest! In reality, the wasp was attracted to the same sugar-water feeder as the hummingbird, and its brief stint as a bird-bully was captured by a recently-announced finalist in the Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) competition. The wasp’s grey body is a sharp contrast to the fiery-throated hummingbird’s iridescent green, purple, gold and black feathers. The insect’s size in relation to the bird helps give a sense of just how tiny hummingbirds are. Taken in Los Quetzales National Park, Costa Rica, by Nova Scotians avian photographer Gail Bisson, the photo is one of just a few images that have been shortlisted in this year’s competition. In the past, BPOTY has released a full list of finalists, but this year they are only revealing “a small handful of finalists to give you a taster of what is to come,” according to their website. We’ll just have to wait until September to see if this little bird (and its buggy adversary) make the cut!
 

[Image description: an iridescent black, green and purple fiery-throated hummingbird sits with an open beak. A wasp is perched on its body. ] Credit & copyright: Gail Bisson/Bird Photographer of the Year
 

Below: two more finalists from this year’s Bird Photographer of the Year competition. The first, taken by Fahad Alenezi, shows a white-tailed sea eagle confronting a red fox. The second, taken by Diana Schmies, shows two mute swans.

Written by: Maria C.

Earthly plants have never looked more alien. American photographer Lindsey Rickert has gained notoriety lately for her color-saturated, aptly-named Otherworldly Botanicals series. In the photo above, an artichoke flower, which is usually green with purple petals, appears against an ombre teal and pink background in bright shades of green, pink, purple and gold. The normally-light-pink tip of each artichoke bract or outer flap is enhanced to a vivid magenta. Funnily enough, Rickert’s bright, colorful photo series was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since Rickert couldn’t be around her usual human photography subjects, she began photographing plants instead, applying her most colorful tricks to obtain interesting shots without much digital manipulation. For the photo above, Rickert posed her artichoke flower against a gray background. She then positioned flash units—devices that create flashes of artificial light—at different angles, with teal, pink, yellow and red gels in front of them. The result is possibly the world’s most colorful artichoke!
 

[Image description: a close-up image of an artichoke flower in bright shades of green, pink, and purple against a blue-and-mauve background ] Credit & copyright: Lindsey Rickert
 

Below: Rickert’s photography setup and another photo from her Otherworldly Botanicals series.

Written by: Maria C.

Talk about a serene gaze. Photographic portraits have the power to make us feel connected to their subjects. Famed American photographer Dawoud Bey, whose most recent exhibit is running at the Whitney Museum until October 3, is a master at creating portraits whose subjects–Black Americans going about their everyday lives–are too often excluded from the art world. In A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, NY, a young Black man looks directly into the camera, with a relaxed expression, as he rests his head on his hands, arms draped across the handlebars of an exercise bike. The photo’s lack of color emphasizes the light playing across the man’s face, and lends the image a timeless quality; it was taken in 1988, but could easily be from today. In an interview with ArtForum, Bey explained that he has always been drawn to portraits, due to the engagement between subject and viewer. “It seemed that something resonant could result from that engagement. I wanted to apply that resonance to Black people, whose presence had not traditionally been given that kind of attention,” Bey said. That explains the power of every smile, glance, and casual pose in Bey’s portraits!

[Image description: a black and white photo of a young Black man, wearing a mesh tank top and jeans, looking into the camera while resting on an exercise bike, with his chin on his hands. ] Credit & copyright: Dawoud Bey/Sean Kelly Gallery/ Stephen Daiter Gallery/Rena Bransten Gallery
 

Below: two more of Bey’s portraits, Three Women at a Parade, Harlem, NY, 1978, and Two Girls at Lady D's, Harlem, NY, 1976.

Written by: Maria C.

When Mother Nature lashes out, lives can be left in shambles. Today marks 6 years since one of the deadliest natural disasters in Colombia's history, when a landslide hit the small mountain town of Salgar. In the photo above, two men sift through a pile of muddy debris in the landslide’s aftermath. The impossibly-high pile includes parts of a house, concrete blocks, and a car. Behind the devastation, green mountains stretch into the distance. On the night of May 17, 2015, heavy rains caused the Libordiana River, which runs through Salgar, to flood. The swelling waters washed massive amounts of mud and rock down from surrounding mountains, causing a landslide which went on for miles. Because the flood began in a forested area where few people lived, there was no warning nor time to evacuate before the landslide rapidly swept through Salgar. Another town in the Salgar municipality, Santa Margarita, was entirely destroyed. Around 78 people were killed in the landslide, making it the deadliest disaster Colombia had experienced since a 1999 earthquake in the city of Armenia. Photos of the landslide’s aftermath will ensure that the muddy 2015 disaster will never be forgotten.
 

[Image description: two men, one in an orange hat and one in a white hat, search through a pile of muddy debris, which includes part of a house and a car.] Credit & copyright: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images).
 

Written by: Maria C.

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

Science and religion have come full circle, with scientists discovering a body-lined portal to the inferno. Well, maybe not quite, but this image sure has our imaginations running wild! Taken in Hawaii in 1996 by Laszlo Kestay, the photo shows a scientist smiling over a dark mass of intertwined shapes that eerily resemble human corpses. At the bottom of the pit is an ominous red opening. Turns out, the "bodies" are actually hardened lava formations, and the fiery hole is known as the West Kamokuna lava skylight. The skylight formed when thinner sections of the crusty formations broke up, revealing free-flowing molten lava below. These days, the man responsible for taking this image continues to explore fascinating volcanic activities as director of the USGS Astrogeology Science Center. Rock on, Kestay… and don't get too close to those skylights!
 
Image credit: Laszlo Kestay, USGS
 

A picture is worth a thousand words even in situations where no words seem to suffice. On this day in 2000, the small Dutch town of Enschede suffered a tragic disaster when the S.E. Fireworks Depot, in the center of town, caught fire. The resulting explosion left 23 people dead and over 1,000 injured. In the photo above, three firefighters survey the explosion’s devastation. They stand in the middle of a road, looking at the smoking remains of a nearby collapsed building, in which a burnt-out vehicle sits, still aflame. A nearby tree has had around half of its leaves burned off. Damage after the S.E. Fireworks Disaster, as it would come to be called, was widespread. The explosion was equal to that of around 11 thousand pounds of TNT. It leveled around one hundred acres of surrounding land and destroyed about 400 homes, necessitating the evacuation of over 10,000 people. Two S.E. Fireworks owners were later fined and jailed. Stricter safety regulations for fireworks factories and storage facilities were introduced in the Netherlands. The country has since shut down three illegal fireworks depots, showing a determination to prevent future disasters.
 

[Image description: Three firemen look at the rubble of a collapsed building after a firework depot explosion in Enschede, the Netherlands.] Credit & copyright: Senscia
 

Below: another photo of the disaster’s aftermath.

Written by: Maria C.

Oof, that’s gotta hurt! The above photo, taken on this day in 1954, shows American boxing legend Floyd Patterson cracking a left, or performing a surprise left hook punch, into the face of fellow boxer Jesse Turner, during a bout in Brooklyn’s Eastern Parkway Arena. Turner lifts his right forearm to block, putting his swollen left eye into full view. The tops of audience member’s heads are just barely visible, beyond the ring. Patterson, already a 1952 Olympic gold medalist, went on to win his bout against Turner, and to become a two-time world heavyweight champion. Unfortunately, Turner was not as lucky. The promising young boxer from St. Louis scored an impressive 36 knockouts during his 62-bout career, but passed away at age 29 for unknown reasons. Patterson retired from boxing in 1972. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Committee Hall of Fame in 1987, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. A knockout athletic career, indeed.
 

[Image description: A black and white photo of boxer Floyd Patterson punching at boxer Jesse Turner’s face with his left glove. ] Credit & copyright: AP
 

Below: a video detailing some of Floyd Patterson’s boxing career

Written by: Maria C.

Romanian photographer Mihaela Noroc is reminding us just how nice of a Mother's Day gift a family portrait can be. As part of her Atlas of Beauty project, Noroc travelled the world capturing images of women and their families, like the above Gâu and her son Khoi (Northern Vietnam). Noroc has said that photographing mothers and their children can be challenging as the kids are often just not that into getting their portraits taken. With the patience of a mother, Noroc has managed to capture the intimate embraces, the joy in their smiles, and the love between mothers and their children, not to mention the bright woven fabrics of Gâu and Khoi! Reflecting on her own motherhood and those of the international women she photographed, Noroc said, "I think that a mother’s love is the most intense feeling that exists in this world and we should let it inspire us and counterbalance all the negativity [that exists]." As part of Atlas of Beauty, Mihaela Noroc is reminding us that beauty isn't just skin deep. It's also in the way a mother holds her child with strength and grace.
 

[Image description: A Vietnamese woman, Gâu, carries her infant son, Khoi, in a sling. Both wear bright pink, blue, purple and orange traditional clothing. ] Credit & copyright: Mihaela Noroc

Below: more pairings of mothers with their children from Noroc's The Atlas of Beauty.

Written by: Esther P.

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

Well before "the dress," another polarizing topic divided the general public: are a horse's feet ever simultaneously off the ground while it gallops, or is one hoof always grounded? As mundane as it seems now, the topic's intrigue stemmed from the fact that the phases of a horse's trot—which can reach speeds up to 45 miles per hour—were nearly impossible to distinguish prior to the invention of moving pictures. In 1878, English photographer (and all around fascinating dude) Eadweard Muybridge put all the chatter to rest with his groundbreaking photo series The Horse in Motion. He was commissioned for the project by former California governor Leland Stanford, who had money riding on the outcome. Muybridge lined Stanford's horse track with 24 glass-plate cameras, each connected to a wire placed on the path. As the day's camera film had low light sensitivity, bright cloths were laid out to increase the final images' contrast as much as possible. On "go," the horse's movement across the wires set off the camera shutters and created the stop motion series seen above, paving the way for the birth of motion film. It also proved the animals do indeed lift all their hooves mid-gallop, but with their legs tucked under their bodies—a fact that makes old artist renderings look kind of like, well, horseplay next to the real thing. See for yourself:

 
Below: how artists depicted horses prior to Muybridge's breakthrough, including Jean Louis Théodore Géricault in 1821's The Epsom Derby and George Stubb in 1791's Baronet with Sam Chifney Up.
 

 
Below: a GIF of The Horse in Motion.
 

How can something so strange feel so relatable? During the pandemic, first-time viewers of American photographer Karen Jerzyk’s Lonely Astronaut series may find themselves asking this question, as they encounter images of a white-suited astronaut wandering streets and abandoned houses as if searching for a friend. In Paper Lanterns, pictured above, Jerzyk’s astronaut stands beneath strings of lights and paper lanterns in the middle of a city street. Green mist obscures their face as the empty road, bordered by closed shops, stretches into the distance behind them. Jerzyk is known for using photoshop sparingly, instead building elaborate sets and standing models on boxes to create “floating” effects. Although Jerzyk’s Lonely Astronaut series began in 2017, after her purchase of an authentic vintage space suit, the series has gained new popularity with many able to connect to the feeling of isolation. “The astronaut is a symbolic representation of myself, traveling around, paying attention to everything and taking it all in, all the while seemingly alone,” Jerzyk explained, in a 2020 article in Mystery Tribune. “In the end, we have to love ourselves because it seems like that’s all we really have.”
 

[Image description: a person in a white astronaut suit stands beneath strings of lights and paper lanterns on an empty city street, at night. Their face is obscured by green mist inside their helmet.] Credit & copyright: Karen Jerzyk
 

Below: two more untitled photos from Jerzyk’s Lonely Astronaut series.

Written by: Maria C.

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

Apparently, we're not the only ones who think this image of the Dnieper River looks like a swirly work of art. European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet took the above image above the International Space Station last year saying: "Winter landscapes are also magical from the International Space Station: this river north of Kiev reminds me of a Hokusai painting." The ISS hovers about 200 miles above the Earth, while the Dnieper flows from central Russia through Belarus, to Ukraine, and into the Black Sea. It's Europe's third longest river at 1,420 miles in length, with a name that comes from an Iranian language meaning "the river on the far side." While Pesquet's view was recently highlighted by NASA, the Dnieper's beauty has served as the face of an ancient Greek coin from the third-century B.C.E. For centuries, the waters served as trade routes for Vikings, Slavs, and Byzantines; and today it remains a vital part of Ukraine's transportation, hydroelectric power system, and economy. For the ISS, it's also a view of the delicate ecosystems at play in our big, beautiful world.

 

Image credit & copyright: Thomas Pesquet, ESA, NASA
 

Looks like someone’s ready to zoom! Famed fashion designer Hugo Comte, who recently released a book containing many of his best-known photos, captured this image of British singer Dua Lipa in 2020. It was one of a series meant to promote Lipa’s multi-platinum album, Future Nostalgia, and shows Lipa driving a vintage silver sports car beneath a full moon. Lipa’s blonde hair is pulled into a high bun, one white-gloved hand on the wooden steering wheel, her pink jacket serving as the image’s brightest pop of color. While fashion photographers are sometimes criticized for portraying models as passive or demure “objects” from which to hang clothes, Comte’s style has always differed. Whether shooting album artwork or promotional images for runway shows, Comte’s models tend to look straight ahead, sometimes directly into the camera, with strong expressions on their faces or in their poses. In an interview with Vogue, Comte explained that he thinks of every woman he photographs as having superpowers. “It’s an obsession with a certain power that I like to extract. It’s in their intention, in their depths, and their thoughts.” With great power comes great photograph-ability!
 

[Image description: singer Dua Lipa with her blonde hair in a bun, wearing a pink jacket and white gloves, driving a silver sports car beneath a full moon. ] Credit & copyright: Hugo Comte
 
Below: two more of Comte’s untitled fashion photos.

Written by: Maria C.