Nina Leen fascination with the world veiwed through a camera lens extends to both the human and animal kingdom. Born in Russia, Leen grew up in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, where she achieved acclaim as an animal photographer. Upon first arriving in the United States in 1939, her reporter’s eye led to a series of wryly amusing works on the habits and rituals of her newly adopted homeland. Her series on, “A Teenager Monopolizes the Telephone,” or her descriptions and images of “The American Male,” are timeless evocations of symbols of modern American society. (read on)

Read The New York Times obituary for Nina Leen. Browse her “teenagers” series for Life Magazine.

About Aaron Romine:

In Aaron Romine’s recent paintings his characters have become stand-ins for something larger. Although obviously recognizable as specific people (they are all actually his friends), the work is contemplative and the scenes are a commentary on current culture. His painstaking paintings have become psychological allegories. He has looked past pure sexuality into how his subjects relate to each other, pushing their relationships to a level of intimacy. While influenced by such artists as Manet, Piazetta, Gaugin, Sargent, and Velazquez, his work has recently veered away from (strictly) historical references. (PragueBiennale.org).

First spotted via This Isn’t Happiness.

Domic Davies is responsible for the photographies displayed in the famous Big Fat Cookbook:

In this enormous, beautiful book, we hear the full story of the meteoric rise of Heston Blumenthal and The Fat Duck, birthplace of snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream, and encounter the passion, perfection and weird science behind the man and the restaurant.

Heston Blumenthal is widely acknowledged to be a genius, and The Fat Duck has twice been voted the Best Restaurant in the World by a peer group of top chefs. But he is entirely self-taught, and the story of his restaurant has broken every rule in the book. His success has been borne out of his pure obsession, endless invention and a childish curiosity into how things work – whether it’s how smell affects taste, what different flavours mean to us on a biological level, or how temperature is distributed in the centre of a soufflé. (from the editor’s website)

See more excerpt from the book over at Daily Icon. Visit The Fat Duck official website (before being a book, it’s a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in the UK). Learn more about chef Heston Blumenthal on Wikipedia. If you can’t afford the full version of this book (it sells at around 150$ dollars on Amazon) don’t worry : there’s a lowered-price edition of it, selling at around 30$:

The cookbook hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “showstopper” and by Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue as “the most glorious spectacle of the season…like no other book I have seen in the past twenty years” is now available in a reduced-price edition. With a reduced trim size but an identical interior, this lavishly illustrated, stunningly designed, and gorgeously photographed masterpiece takes you inside the head of maverick restaurateur Heston Blumenthal. Separated into three sections (History; Recipes; Science), the book chronicles Blumenthal’s improbable rise to fame and, for the first time, offers a mouth-watering and eye-popping selection of recipes from his award-winning restaurant. He also explains the science behind his culinary masterpieces, the technology and implements that make his alchemical dishes come to life. Designed by acclaimed artist Dave McKean—and filled with photographs by Dominic Davies—this artfully rendered celebration of one of the world’s most innovative and renowned chefs is a foodie’s dream. (Amazon)

In any case, be sure to take a look at the Big Fat Undertaking blog: someone actually attempting to do more with this book than looking at the picture.

In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inventors, and accomplished cooks in their own right—have created a six-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that ranges from the otherworldly to the sublime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astounding new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes. It is a work destined to reinvent cooking. (About)

Download a 20 pages preview of the book (PDF). Learn more about the authors (Myhrvold was the first chief technology officer at Microsoft : check his wikipedia page). The 6 volumes are all sold together. They can be pre-ordered on Amazon for a meer 500$

Studio series focusing on disused electronics, as well as flora and fauna.

About Benn Innes:

Born in Knoxville, TN, Ben Innes now works, eats and sleeps in Minneapolis, MN. He gained his BFA in photography from the Minneapolis College Of Art and Design in the spring of 2009. (About)

First spotted via Coudal Partners.

Since we’re talking about photography and typology, Chrisin has many other collections such as this one : emergency only buttons, doorlocks, doors gates and entrances, etc.

First spotted via This Isn’t Happiness

The photo comes from sarcoptiform’s photostream on Flickr. Because the way those photos were taken and assemble (frontal shot, neutral gray shade) it’s reminiscent (in a way) of Bernd and Hilla Becher typology of water towers (Amazon, Wikipedia).

The two authors behind the blog Mrs. Dean, Norman Beierle and Hester Keijser, did a much more elaborated (and explicit) hommage to Bernd and Hilla Becher’s water towers series : Joghurtbecher. It’s a study ― Becher style ― of… yogurt cups. See example here. More about Joghurtbecher.

“A man with x-ray vision, Nick Veasy creates images that show what it is really like inside. Nick’s work with radiographic imaging equipment takes the x-ray to another level. everyday objects are transformed from the banal to the beguiling and the layers and the make-up of natural items are shown in fantastic detail.”

Previously on Skandalon: radiology art.

Previously on Skandalon : Paul Roberts.

“In his ongoing series Until the Kingdom Comes, begun in 2004 and first shown at the gallery in 2006, Simen Johan depicts a natural world hovering between reality, fantasy and nightmare. Merging traditional photographic techniques with digital methods, Johan’s images are crafted over time and may include a synthesis of landscapes from various geographical locations and animals photographed in captivity or in the wild.

An albino deer is camouflaged in a lattice of trees, shadow and light in one image; in another, a weeping willow is enshrined in an apocalyptic fog. Two of Johan’s recent sculptures incorporating feathers, insects and foliage into miniature ecosystems will also be included in the show.

In his work, Johan blurs the boundaries between the real and the unreal, re-imagining worlds that, much like our own, are forever a mystery. Majestic animals in fantasy landscapes are set in relief against a darker reality. The work addresses primal experiences, shaped by desires and fears—solitary paths towards imagined fulfillment.” (read more).

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and their son.

“Slim Aarons, born George Allen Aarons (October 29, 1916, Manhattan - May 29, 2006, Montrose, New York), was an American photographer noted for photographing socialites, jet-setters and celebrities.” (Wikipedia). More photos by Slim Aarons over at Staley+Wise Gallery

“Horacio Salinas is a conceptual, still life photographer in New York, New York.”