Ivanka and Mariana, Bourgas, 2003 [from "Mechkar"]
© Albin Biblom

Mark McKnight pointed me to the fantastic work of Albin Biblom. I particularly like his project entitled Mechkar, which is an intimate documentary of Bulgaria’s last dancing bears and their owners. As Biblom’s statement describes the situation,

The Roma tradition and profession which has passed on from father to son for more than a thousand years is now coming to an end in Bulgaria. The animal rights organizations Brigitte Bardot Foundation (Fra) and Vier Pfoten (Aus) has built a bear reserve outside the town Belitsa, south of Sofia, where the dancing bears will spend the remnants of their lives. The bear owners are compensated with approximately 2000 Euro for letting their bears go to this reserve.

Visit Biblom’s website to see this and other work by him.

Sweedish photographer JH Engström’s book, Haunts (Steidl, 2006), is as wonderfully realized as the work. The images in sequence are a push-pull of public and private, emotion and objectivity, strange and beautiful:

spread from Haunts, 2006
© JH Engström

spread from Haunts, 2006
© JH Engström

spread from Haunts, 2006
© JH Engström

spread from Haunts, 2006
© JH Engström

spread from Haunts, 2006
© JH Engström

spread from Haunts, 2006
© JH Engström

Engström describes the book as “part two” of an autobiographical trilogy. Pick up a copy of Haunts here or see more images on Engström’s website. And don’t miss his other projects, especially CDG.

Lynn Theater, Gonzalez, Texas, 2006
© Alec Soth

Alec Soth recently updated his website with a body of work that was commissioned by Magnum in 2006, entitled Thirty-three Theatres and a Funeral Home - a series of photographs exploring the architecture of abandoned movie theaters in Texas, inspired by the films of of Wim Wenders.

Take a look.

Yes Tomorrow, No Tomorrow, 2006
© Shannon Ebner

Shannon Ebner will be giving a talk tomorrow at 12:30pm at the Museum of Fine Arts’s Riley Seminar Room. Those of you in Boston should make sure to be there.

The lecture is being held in conjunction with SMFA’s “8 Photographers” course, but is open to the public. If you want a printable reminder, the info is all right here.

Untitled, Arkhangelsk, Russia, 2004
© Ingar Krauss

A kind reader referred me to a lovely series of black and white photographs of children by German photographer Ingar Krauss. Looking up his work, I discovered a great feature on Lens Culture. Or see more images here.

Natasha [from "AIDS in Odessa"]
© Andrea Diefenbach

A friend referred me to some quite beautiful and moving photography by German photographer Andrea Diefenbach - a series of photographs entitled AIDS in Odessa. As the project is described on Andrea’s website,

Odessa is known as “pearl at the black sea.” It is the port in the south of the Ukraine – one of the countries, which has been hit heavily by the fall of the Soviet Union. One of many symptoms of the collapse is the AIDS epidemic. Since a short time the Ukraine holds the sad European record for new cases of infection, and is among those nations in which AIDS is currently spreading most quickly. The first case of HIV infection was reported in 1987. The frequency of new infections began to rise rapidly in the mid-1990s and has shown no sign of abating since then. The disease initially spread through intravenous drug users and sex workers in the southern parts of the country.

Balloons on AIDS Memorial Day [from "AIDS in Odessa"]
© Andrea Diefenbach

Today HIV/AIDS appears in the whole population and in all of Ukraines regions. According to estimates, some 416,000 people, 17 percent of all Ukrainians aged fifteen to forty-nine, are either HIV-positive or suffering from full-blown AIDS in 2005. Due to the seven-to ten-year incubation period, more and more people are dying of AIDS as the years pass. Odessa, the port city through which the HIV virus is presumed to have been introduced to the countries of the Soviet Union, is now one of the more heavily impacted cities. Estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO) indicate that as many as 160,000 individuals infected with HIV live in the city of one million.

Natasha [from "AIDS in Odessa"]
© Andrea Diefenbach

Hatje Cantz recently published a monograph for this body of work with a forward by Boris Mikhailov, which can be found here. See more work by Andrea, including more images from AIDS in Odessa, on her website.