Andrzej Dragan

Mads Mikkelsen, 2007

Photograph: Andrzej Dragan

Pieta, 2010

Photograph: Andrzej Dragan

Andrzej Dragan’s portraits terrify on one hand and addict on the other. One has a strong need to come back and penetrate inhumanly realistic elements of the photographs going deeper and deeper. Power and clarity of the detail, and crystal purity of the color, sober and gloomy light are the elements of Dutch paintings. This is probably the source of the impact of Andrzej’s photographs. Portraying so well-known characters as David Lynch, Mads Mikkelsen or Jerzy Urban in the manner of old, Rembrandt style surprises the viewer used to contemporary photography which is so close to spontaneous expression, escaping from reality through exaggerated effects such as movement, blurring the image or taking the colors down to unnatural scale. Dragan’s works remain inside one’s mind for a long time and most of all – they stand out among thousands of others images surrounding us.
Tomek Sikora

Farm Children

Farm Children, 1913

Photo: August Sander

Gelatin silver print

Freaky Cats

The whitest white cat I've ever met, 2017

by Bendix Harms

Oil on canvas

Tears of No Return, 2020

by Bendix Harms

Oil on canvas

Capote

Truman Capote, 1947

Photograph: Henri-Cartier Bresson

Truman Capote, 1965

Photograph: Irving Penn

Closed Contact

Closed Contact #8, 1995- 96, C-Print

Jenny Saville & Glen Luchford

After having observed the operations of reconstructive surgery and aesthetic surgery, acclaimed figurative painter Jenny Saville was eager to express the violence and anesthetized pain of this experience in her own work. She and fashion photographer Glenn Luchford thus began an artistic collaboration that captures the full range of color, tonality, and topography of live flesh, in large photographic tableaux that portray Saville's own body.

Turkey Dinner 69c

A clown at a lunch counter

Reno, Nevada, USA, 1963

Photograph: Thomas Hoepker

(Magnum Photos, Courtesy of Bildhalle)

Six Chinese Gentlemen

Opium smokers, China, ca.1880

Photograph: Lai Afong

Albumen print

Observation Balloon

German tethered balloon being raised for observation purposes during the Champagne campaign (observation balloon being maneuvered through a field of haystacks by German soldiers in the Champagne region of France during World War I). France ca.1915.

Gelatin silver print from the F.J.M. Rehse Archiv für Zeitgeschichte und Publizistik, München.  (Shorpy)

Goldfish

Goldfish, 1993

by Yue Minjun

Oil on canvas

Leipzig 45

A U.S. soldier stands in the middle of rubble in the Monument of the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig after they attacked the city on April 18, 1945. The huge monument commemorating the defeat of Napoleon in 1813 was one of the last strongholds in the city to surrender. One hundred and fifty SS fanatics with ammunition and foodstuffs stored in the structure to last three months dug themselves in and were determined to hold out as long as their supplies. American First Army artillery eventually blasted the SS troops into surrender. Photograph: Eric Schwab/AFP/Getty Images.

Céline

French author Louis-Ferdinand Céline in Meudon, 1959

Photograph: Jean Mounicq

Locomotion

London via Vlissingen - Harwich, 1928

Dutch poster by Adolphe Mouron-Cassandre

Locomotive, with Entrance to Perisphere of 1939 New York World's Fair in Background. Gelatin silver print. Unidentified photographer. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Englewood Girls

Girls Dancing, Englewood, Chicago, 2008

From the project 'We All We Got' by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Edward Henry Potthast

Coney Island, ca.1914

by Edward Henry Potthast

Oil painting

Along the shore, n/d

by Edward Henry Potthast

Oil on panel

Vermilion Flycatcher

Vermilion flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus) male

The Pantanal, Brazil, 12 September 2015

Photograph: Charles J Sharp

Fear & Suspense

Worlds of Fear, June 1953

Artwork by Norman Saunders

Detective Tales, August 1951

Artwork by Norman Saunders

Tasmania

Myrtle tree in rainforest at Mount Anne, Southwest National Park, Tasmania, 1984. Photograph: Peter Dombrovskis

Drying kelp at Sandy Bay, Macquarie Island, Tasmania, 1984.

Photograph: Peter Dombrovskis

Execution Day

There had been a hanging that morning in Pentonville prison in north London. A group gathered outside the still-unopened pub opposite the main gate. The executed man had lived nearby and these were some of his friends, 1958.

Text & Photograph by Philip Jones Griffiths.

Bob Mortimer

English comedian Bob Mortimer, n/d

Photograph: UKTV - Avalon

Robert Henri

Edna Smith in a Japanese Wrap, ca.1915
by Robert Henri

Oil on canvas

Snow in Central Park, 1902
by Robert Henri
Oil on canvas

Berenice Abbott

Jane Heap, 1929-1931

Photo: Berenice Abbot

Gelatin silver print

Janet Flanner in Paris, 1927

Photo: Berenice Abbott

Gelatin silver print

Lisa

Lisa Lyon, 1982

Gelatin silver print

Photograph: Robert Mapplethorpe

Lisa Lyon, 1980

Gelatin silver print

Photograph: Robert Mapplethorpe

Roman Vishniac

Young Jewish boys suspicious of strangers

Mukachevo, ca.1935-38

Photo: Roman Vishniac

Vishniac’s daughter Mara posing in front of an election poster for Hindenburg and Hitler that reads 'The Marshal and the Corporal DD Fight with Us for Peace and Equal Rights,' Wilmersdorf, Berlin, 1933. 

Photograph: Roman Vishniac,

Jo Brand

English comedienne Jo Brand, 1994

Photograph: Mark Granier

I met Jo Brand briefly after a show she gave in Belfast (can't remember the venue). I was doing a PoetryCreative Writing MA in Co Antrim at the time. She was a joy to photograph, friendly, unselfconscious, playful and comfortable in her own skin.

Close Harmony

Farmer, his wife, and brother in close harmony. Pie Town, New Mexico, June 1940. Medium format negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration. (Shorpy)

The Philanthropist

Gillian Anderson and Tim Choate in a scene from Christopher Hampton’s play The Philanthropist at the Long Wharf theater, New Haven, Connecticut, in 1992. Photograph: T Charles Erickson.

Gutter Art

Stephen Varble Performing Gutter Art

with Onlooker, New York, 1975

Photograph: Jimmy DeSana

Gelatin silver  print

Two Female Portraits

Portrait of a Lady, ca.1460

by Rogier van der Weyden

Oil on panel

Portrait of a Young Venetian Woman, 1505

by Albrecht Dürer

Oil on Panel

View From The Train

South London, Train To Hastings

Black & White, 14 ‎May, ‎2020

Photograph: Ray Wallis

First Flight

First Airmail Flight, May 1938