By Heather Murphy

A photograph of a 53-year-old naked man, sitting on a child's chair, beat out 15,000 other entries from across the world in the Art of Photography competition in San Diego this weekend.

Benoit Paille, who made the unusual portrait, met the man on the street one day. Paille, who often asks elderly strangers if he can photograph them, was invited to the fellow's home. To his surprise, the man, who had recently lost his mother, chose to express his loneliness by removing his clothes and crouching on a tiny chair.

"It is a remarkable photograph in its piercing representation of an acute and specific human state," explains the show's sole judge, Charlotte Cotton, the head of the photography department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Cotton, who sifted through thousands of photos by amateurs and professionals alike, says she was searching for photos that capture the wonder of the world -- whether through connections with strangers or kin. Another one of Cotton's favorites was Martine Fougeron's photograph of her teen sons and their friends, reclining on colorful bean bags.

"What I love about it," says Cotton, over the phone after the show, "is that she has a digital maturity, but there's also that sense of someone taking out the camera for the first time, this freshness."

She calls the fourth-place winner, "one of the best biographical stories that photography has crafted in the 2000s." See if you agree, by exploring more of Fougeron's Tete a Tete project here.

The Art of Photography exhibit, featuring the submissions, is open until Nov. 1.

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By Claire O'Neill

Dennis Stock is a living testament to the fact that dropping out of school may not be the worst idea. Still sharp as a tack at 81 -- maybe even sharper -- he says euphemistically, "Formal education is not my cup of tea." In his youth, he probably wasn't even the tea-drinking type. Stock's idea of rejuvenation involved road trips, camp-outs, cultural immersion and long-term photo essays for Life and other publications. Nowadays, his archive is a treasure trove to the Americana-loving historian. And it's largely because he had the guts to quit school and hit the road. In the late 1960s, he was photographing the Woodstock Generation, but he was also one of its free-spirited, anarchistic exemplars.

A collection of Stock's photographs from the late '60s is now on display in his hometown, at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in New York. It's a timely exhibit, coinciding with the free-loving festival's 40th anniversary this month, and it was also a good excuse to get the renowned Magnum photographer on the phone.

In workshops and lessons, Stock teaches what he calls the "articulate image" -- that is, an image that conveys the "essence of a situation." He's certainly more comfortable explaining what makes a good photograph than, say, his infamously taciturn predecessor Henri Cartier-Bresson, who influenced nearly every photographer in the late 20th century but refused to admit it.

It seems that there's an inherent intuition to great photographers -- something that cannot be taught, and something that Stock just has. There are a few photos I've encountered in life, for example, that have really resonated -- images that, for whatever reason, I cannot get out of my mind. And one of them is Stock's Venice Beach Rock Festival, 1968.

Venice Beach Rock Festival, Calif., 1968. (Dennis Stock)

Hear Stock discuss his photo:

It was taken, as the title says, at a rock festival in California, when a girl jumped in front of Stock's camera on stage. It was a fleeting, accidental moment, and yet the photo itself is timeless. Perhaps it's because Stock was both curious about and accepting of his (counter) culture that, when it comes to articulate images, his are some of the most eloquent. If there's one lesson to be learned from Stock, it has nothing to do with composition or lighting or f-stops -- it's about being adventurous and observant and, heaven forbid, maybe even a bit rebellious.

Hear Stock discuss some of his greatest photos on Magnum's Web site: James Dean, jazz musicians, his award-winning immigrant series and, most importantly, hippies.

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By Claire O'Neill

Harold Feinstein's career took off in 1950, when photography legend Edward Steichen purchased his work for the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Since then, Feinstein has compiled books of 100 flowers and 100 seashells -- and now he has become something of a lepidopterist.

You guessed it: Feinstein's latest pursuit is butterflies. His new book, One Hundred Butterflies, is a simple concept that shows off the variegated wingspans. Magnified and removed from their natural environments, they appear as flying, flapping works of art -- although they are actually in the same taxonomic class as ants and wasps. In any case, it's pretty cool to see butterflies the size of your face. Visit Feinstein's Web site to see more of his work, especially the section dedicated to Coney Island. Look out for the book this November.

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By Claire O'Neill

When we think of photography "greats," we usually rattle off names like Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon or Henri Cartier-Bresson. It often seems as if we've forgotten an entire hemisphere of photographic history. But two exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art aim to change that. "The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography" and "Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea" show off SFMOMA's extensive postwar Japanese photography collection, and also incorporate some more contemporary photography from China and Korea.

"The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography," the museum's first survey of postwar Japanese photography, includes nearly a hundred pictures from the 1960s through the 1990s. These photos document Japan's transformation in the wake of its World War II defeat. Evolving from a traditionally conservative society to a democratic, capitalistic nation took time. But over the years, Japan embraced change, which often meant embracing the West.

In 1959, for example, a group of Japanese photographers united in a group called VIVO, modeled after Magnum Photos agency -- something of an industry powerhouse in the West. Likewise, a small-press photography magazine was formed in 1968. Provoke: shiso no tame no chohatsuteki shiryo (Provoke: Provocative Materials for Thought) aimed to bolster the photographic community and facilitate artistic dialogue. It also gave this exhibition its name.

Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea features photographs from 13 emerging photographers in China, as well as a selection from Korea. Here's a very small sampling of images from the exhibitions, which both open Sept. 12, and an even smaller sampling of Japanese photography -- more of a teaser introduction, if anything.

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By Claire O'Neill

A few weeks ago, NPR's multimedia director Keith Jenkins went on All Things Considered to discuss which camera is best for you. We also asked listeners to submit summer photos to Flickr, and here are some of our favorites.

Summer's not over yet! You can still add your photos to this stream by simply tagging them "nprsummer."

• Also related: Scanning Old Memories A Shoe Box At A Time

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By Claire O'Neill
Tune in to Weekend Edition to hear author Michael Pollan tell host Scott Simon how orchids are "the inflatable love dolls of the floral kingdom."

In 1994, John Edward Laroche was arrested for allegedly "poaching" orchids, which goes to show just how precious they are. Eight years later, Laroche was a character in Charlie Kauffman's film Adaptation, and this is what he had to say about those furtive flowers:

... what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. ... And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. ... In this sense they show us how to live -- how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way.

That's a pretty romantic way of thinking about a plant. Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food), on the other hand, isn't quite as charmed. His article in the September issue of National Geographic magazine, accompanied by Christian Ziegler's photography, expresses admiration -- but no such adulation.

Orchids are manipulative, self-centered, wily and sometimes downright sadistic. And yet insects and humans alike are ensnared -- perhaps for those very reasons -- by their ethereal beauty. Unlike most flowers, orchids require the help of insects and birds and pollinate. And so they have adapted, in some cases, to both look and smell like their pollinator's female counterparts. You can imagine how supremely frustrating this must be for a male insect, and how smug the orchid must feel -- that is, how it would feel if it were sentient.

We humans are by no means impervious to the orchid's charms. Pollan and Ziegler, for example, trekked around the world in an attempt to demystify some of the orchid's secrets. But while Pollan's entertaining narrative gives us pause in our orchid fever, Ziegler's photos, in this editor's humble opinion, only serve to perpetuate that flower frenzy: They are spectacular.

View more of his photos at ngm.com, and be sure to read Pollan's full article.

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By Claire O'Neill

In the 1940s, a photographer named Gordon Parks broke into a scene that had previously been dominated by white men. He was the first black photographer to work for magazines like Life and Vogue, and the first to work for the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information. Born into poverty and the youngest of 15, he had a sensibility about poor living conditions. But as a renowned photographer, he also had access to some of the most famed athletes and celebrities, like Muhammad Ali and Ingrid Bergman.

This summer, it was announced that more that 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives of Parks' work will be moved to Purchase College/State University of New York to be preserved, cataloged and made available for public view and study. The groundbreaking photographer died in 2006, and the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation acquired his work the following year. The foundation will also be sending photos by Timothy O'Sullivan, Mathew Brady and Ed Clark along with Parks' collection to be housed by Purchase.

You can see some of Parks' photos in this gallery, some from Purchase College and others from the Library of Congress, which also has a large collection of his early work. To learn more about Parks, check out this retrospective feature put together by PDN and Kodak.

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By Claire O'Neill

El Salvador has technically been in peacetime since its civil war ended 17 years ago. But as photographer Juan Carlos says, it "has come a long way but has not moved forward." For many Salvadorans, postwar recovery has been almost as devastating as the war itself: The country is plagued with violence, drugs and a stagnant economy -- not to mention the various natural disasters that continually impede development. Carlos, currently living in El Salvador, has documented the country's postwar struggle in his series "Duro Blandito."

"Duro Blandito" (hard soft) is a type of cheese and, in popular Salvadoran speech, an oxymoron expressing the ambiguity of life. For Carlos, the phrase also conveys the difficulty of defining peace in a postwar era. The country had been defined by civil unrest for several decades, culminating in the 1980s and '90s in a civil war to overthrow a repressive government. Peace accords were finally signed in 1992, and with that came hope for the Salvadoran people.

But El Salvador is still among the 10 poorest countries in Latin America. "In various parts of the country," Carlos says, "one can still catch sight of the stillness of time." That is, those regions have remained socio-economically stagnant for the past three decades. While things are changing slowly for Salvadorans, daily life is a struggle for many. The photos in this series say more.

Juan Carlos, like many other Salvadorans, moved to the United States in the mid-1980s and settled in California. He has since returned to El Salvador to live and work. He offered to share his story with The Picture Show, hoping that it might reach those unfamiliar with El Salvador's situation. View more of his work on his Web site.

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By Claire O'Neill

At least in Washington, D.C., today feels like the swampiest, most oppressively hot day of the year. And in the impossible attempt to beat the heat, this collection of photos somehow seems appropriate: Gigi Cifali, London-based photographer, has a series depicting abandoned swimming pools that practically scoff at the idea of cooling off.

These photos are part of an ongoing series called "Absence of Water." Cifali, originally trained as a topographer in Naples, is interested in creating a historical archive of derelict public pools in the United Kingdom. These pools, first built in the late Victorian period, reached the height of popularity in the 1930s. But an increasing number have recently fallen into decay -- either because of diminishing civic funds or general lack of interest.

These ghostly vestiges show what happens to the things we build then abandon. Times change, and apparently so do our tastes. To view more, check out Cifali's Web site.

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By Claire O'Neill
Photos By David Gilkey

At first glance, there's something comical about a man chasing a runaway donkey with a country's presidential ballots on its back. But actually, that man and donkey are responsible for delivering the vote to some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan for this Thursday's election -- regions only accessible by donkey that could very easily be neglected and, until now, pretty much have been.

For this year's election, Afghanistan's second democratic election, the United Nations and the Afghan Independent Election Commission have mapped out ballot deliveries by helicopter, truck and donkey to ensure rural citizens the right to vote. NPR staff photographer David Gilkey joined election officials in the trek to deliver voting materials in the Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan.

Despite his remote location and patchy reception, we were able to get Gilkey on the phone for a few minutes to ask him about this experience. After embedding with Marines and dodging constant fire in southern Afghanistan, and after covering the presidential campaign, Gilkey seemed grateful to see this side of the election -- a more positive side. "It gives you a whole new appreciation for our right to vote," says Gilkey. "We can't even get in the car and drive a half a mile to the elementary school to vote. But these people, don't ask me how -- they don't have phones, power or water -- will walk for two days to vote."

To learn more about the Afghanistan election, and to view more of Gilkey's photographs, check out our Afghanistan hub page.

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By Claire O'Neill

Most photographers in Venice wield small point-and-shoot cameras and attempt to capture something like a postcard city. It's the Venice of dreams rather than the sinking, struggling Venice that exists today. But National Geographic Photographer Jodi Cobb went to Venice with a different mission: to show it as it is -- beautiful, yes, but also sad and suffering. Her photos appear in the August issue: "Vanishing Venice."

Cobb has traveled the world to document places and people. She was the first woman to win the White House News Photographer of the Year award (in 1985). She was one of the first to document intimately the lives of Japanese geishas, and to photograph in China after it was reopened to the West. Compared to her other assignments, Venice, probably one of the most photographed cities in the world, must have seemed like old news.

But there's definitely a story to tell there. Venice, which indeed has a longstanding tradition of tourism, has in recent years faced an identity crisis. As acqua alta, or high tide, causes irreversible infrastructural damage, the cost of maintenance is almost unsustainable. One funding solution has been to open the flood gates to the tide of tourism. It's a mainstay for the Venetian economy, but also a curse for Venice locals. The population has diminished remarkably in the past few decades. Will there still be a Venice in 50 years? Or will it merely be a drowning museum?

Cobb's photos show us the Venice rarely seen in guidebooks. View more of her photos and read the story here. Also check out an interactive map of Venetian flood patterns.

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By Claire O'Neill
An audio slideshow produced in collaboration with Meridian International Center:
"Jam Session: America's Ambassadors Embrace The World."

The year is 1956. We're deep in the throes of the Cold War. And as European powers are divested of colonial possessions, the Soviet Union is shrewdly dispatching cultural envoys around the world -- dancers, musicians and artists -- to win the trust and loyalty of newly emerging nations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. government is clambering in search of its own diplomatic edge. A voice of reason then emerges from the panic: Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Harlem congressman, steps up and says, "Let's send Dizzy." There's no better way to win hearts and minds than through the irrepressible forces of jazz, he proposes.

Dizzy Gillespie plays for snakes. Karachi, Pakistan, 1956.
(Courtesy of the Marshall Stearns Collection, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University)

launch audio slideshow >

"Of course!" thought the State Department. Not only was jazz a uniquely American art form, but also a democratic one. The rules were loose, the music free-flowing -- and the musicians were ideal diplomats: All they wanted was to jam with "local cats." In turn, these jazz artists spread the image of an accepting, inquisitive and just plain cool America.

Jazz had already been popularized abroad through various circuits, namely Willis Conover's "Music U.S.A.," a Voice of America radio program. Intimate interviews and live performances were broadcast globally, providing diversion and comfort to those behind the Iron Curtain and beyond.

But the real leg up for jazz came when the U.S. State Department decided to officially sponsor a series of ambassadorial jazz tours that would run through the 1970s. (A form of these tours still exists today.) With government funding, musicians like Dizzy Gillespie could assemble all-star bands to tour the world as cultural diplomats -- "jambassadors," if you will -- keen to expand their musical horizons by experimenting with new instruments and new people. And the international crowds loved it.

Miles Davis and the Yamaha group at the Newport-Belgrade Jazz Festival. Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1973.
(Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville)

This diplomatic experiment was not documented by one particular person. But photos from the jazz tours have found their way to various archives and collections around the country. Not until recently could many be found in one place to present a coherent vision of the jazz tours. With the help of libraries and special collections -- as well as avid fans -- Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C., has assembled an exhibit called "Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors Embrace The World."

The exhibit itself isn't news; it's been around for about a year. What's exciting is that "Jam Session" has been copied six times and has recently embarked upon a three-year, worldwide tour with the State Department. Meridian is thus igniting something of a second life for the original diplomatic tours. Hear Meridian's Curtis Sandberg, co-curator of the exhibit with Penny Von Eschen, discuss a few of the exhibit's most iconic images in this audio slideshow.

• Learn more on the exhibit site.
• Meridian International Center, founded in 1960, is a leading nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution in Washington, D.C., dedicated to building sustainable global partnerships through leadership exchanges, international collaboration and cultural diplomacy. Its international art exhibitions present the social and political dynamics of countries around the world and have reached 44 U.S. states and 27 countries.
• Has your appetite for jazz knowledge been piqued? If so, head over to NPR's jazz blog, A Blog Supreme, for an impossibly vast outpouring of jazz-related things.

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By Claire O'Neill

There's no doubt you've seen the iconic National Geographic image of the "Afghan Girl." That photo was made by photographer Steve McCurry in Pakistan in 1984 -- and, although indeed one of the most memorable stills of this past century, it has almost come to overshadow the rest of his portfolio. But McCurry's work has been featured in nearly every major magazine around the world, and he is undoubtedly one of the best living photographers in his field.

McCurry's career took off when he moved to India in 1978. A young freelancer, he bought a one-way ticket, stashed a few thousand dollars, and packed two suitcases: one full of clothes, and the other full of 250 rolls of Kodachrome film. Since then, he has produced award-winning photographs and stories in Beirut, Cambodia, Afghanistan, India -- literally all over the world.

He lives the solitary life of a traveler almost nine months out of the year. Immersing himself in every culture he encounters, McCurry is as much an anthropologist and humanitarian as he is a documentary photographer. He's a master of light, of composition and color, and his photographs tell the story of not one culture, but of humanity on the whole -- struggles and triumphs alike.

• An exhibition of his work will be opening at Colorado's (solar-powered!) Open Shutter Gallery Aug. 21, and will continue through Oct. 1.
• Kodak recently honored McCurry with the very last roll of Kodachrome film, a retired product as of this past June. Listen to the NPR story on All Things Considered.
• Read this story about McCurry's return to Pakistan to find Sharbat Gula, the Afghan girl, in 2002.

Sharbat Gula, or the "Afghan girl," in 1984 and 2002, Peshawar, Pakistan (Steve McCurry)

____________________

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By Claire O'Neill

For nearly 40 years, Richard Misrach's eye has been drawn to landscapes -- or maybe the more accurate term would be topologies: studies of shapes and movement and light, whether the subject be a mountain chain or a forest fire or a collection of people on a beach.

As is the case for many photographers, Misrach's early influences were landscape artists like Ansel Adams and social documentarians like Dorothea Lange. With a fastidious technical approach, he surfed the creative artistic wave of the 1960s, arriving at a distinctive vision: large-scale color photographs, teetering on the verge of surreal. Part of this vision, his On The Beach series, is now on display at Atlanta's High Museum Of Art.

It's not easy to capture fleeting beach scenes with a cumbersome 8x10 camera, Misrach once explained in a National Gallery of Art interview. Even when working quickly, it can take over a minute to successfully make a photograph -- just enough time for a swimmer to float right out of the frame. But it's that painstaking process that makes Misrach's photos so interesting. His post-production experiments help, too. Using digital tools, Misrach has played with cropping and what he calls "digital intervention" -- or removing extraneous objects and figures.

Cropping both the horizon and the sky from the frame, Misrach provides an aerial, seemingly omniscient view of swimmers and sunbathers below. Although the beach is typically a destination for relaxation, there's a certain foreboding and vulnerability to these photos. Which is partially because they were made in the days after September 11, when anxiety was high, as was the desire to just get away. It's these nuances of human behavior that distinguish Misrach's landscapes from those of his predecessors.

• To learn more about Misrach and his "On The Beach" series, check out the High Museum's Web feature.
• Hear the artist discuss his work with Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, in a three-part podcast.

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By Jason Orfanon

Coral reefs are the rain forests of the oceans -- teeming with diverse and postcard-perfect fish, towering sponges and multicolored coral. In these photos, Dr. Mark Vermeij, scientific director of the Caribbean Institute for Research and Management of Biodiversity, documents the diversity of life in this magnificent -- yet fragile -- underwater ecosystem.

Glassy Sweepers are small, nervous fish that can cluster in groups of 100 or more. (Mark Vermeij)

view slideshow >

You also hear and read about Dr. Vermeij's work, in an All Things Considered story by NPR's Richard Harris, "Can Corals Survive In A Warming World?"

By Caryn Grant

It can be said that photographer Anthony Hernandez has a "street-level" view of Los Angeles. He captures everyday life in the city, often buried beneath perceptions of the glitz and glamour of red carpets and Hollywood stars. Hernandez's work represents local L.A. -- his L.A.

Born in Los Angeles in 1947, Hernandez began his career in the late 1960s with no formal artistic training. He hit the city sidewalks with a pre-focused 35mm camera, searching for subjects to represent the urban character of his hometown. Thus began a career of "street photography."

The Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting an exhibit that guides visitors through 70 photographs encompassing Hernandez's work from 1970 to 1984.

"His work captures the alienated and the unexplored locals of LA beyond the cliche glamour of Hollywood to tell greater truths about urban life," Vancouver Art Gallery director Kathleen Bartels said in a release.

Hernandez eventually moved from a small 35mm Leica, which allowed him to take quick, reflexive photographs, to a large-format camera and tripod in the late 1970s and early '80s. With this setup, he mostly focused on transitional spaces throughout the urban landscape, photographing people in public transit areas, public use areas, public fishing areas and automotive landscapes.

The self-titled exhibit runs until Sept. 7. To learn more, check out the exhibition Web site.

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By Claire O'Neill

"The rain forest is really messy," says photographer Christian Ziegler. Armed with a camera and a headlamp, he would plunge into the wilds of Panama at night, foraging for what look like sticks and leaves. But when the sticks started crawling and the leaves walked up branches or hopped about the forest floor, Ziegler knew to raise his camera.

No, it's not magic, it's mimicry. Ziegler, first a tropical ecologist, then a photographer, was working on a story for the August issue of National Geographic magazine. "The Art of Deception" is a tale of evolutionary marvels: insects and creatures so well adapted to blend in with their surroundings that they practically disappear during the day.

National Geographic provided The Picture Show with desaturated images to show these creatures in relief. Click through the gallery to see them emerge from hiding. Learn more about mimicry behavior from the photographer in this National Geographic interactive.

Ziegler is an associate for communication at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. View more of his photos on his Web site.

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By John Poole NPR Staff Photographer

I have never seen so many rainbows in my life. They were everywhere -- fat ones, skinny ones, straight ones, bowed ones. But what did I expect? I was in a rain forest. And I had traveled through one of the wettest places on the entire planet, Quince Mil, a town named after the 15,000 millimeters (that's about 50 feet) of rain it got one year.

But one rainbow took the cake. Actually, it was two rainbows -- a double rainbow. And not only did it appear over my head, but also all the way around and underneath me and the little prop plane I was in. Looking back on it, I'm not sure I'd believe it ever happened at all, which makes me happy to have grabbed a digital image of it.

But rainbows weren't the main reason I was flying over the Peruvian rain forest. NPR had sent me and reporter Lourdes Garcia Navarro to Peru to travel overland along the soon-to-be-completed Interoceanic Highway that will, for the first time, connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America through Brazil and Peru. It's part of larger plan to more closely connect the countries of South America through trade, but it has conservationists and scientists worried about what it will mean for the rain forest species and ecosystems that lie in its path.

We're currently working on a radio and Web series about what we heard and saw along the way, but in advance of that, The Picture Show wanted a preview. So, with no more delay, here are some pictures from the Andes and the Amazon (with a few of Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley thrown in for fun).

Also, as a bonus for any GPS nerds out there, I plotted the pictures on a Google map -- which can also be viewed in Google Earth -- possibly my favorite app. Click the screen shot below to have a look:

Click to launch map.

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By Georgia Rhodes

Sebastian Copeland went to the Earth's southernmost continent -- Antarctica -- with a mission to take one specific picture. He never planned on making a book. But six weeks and 6,000 pictures later, Copeland had enough images to create what is now a book: Antarctica: A Global Warning.

Based on a similar effort in the Arctic, Copeland traveled to Antarctica on behalf of Global Green USA in order to arrange people in a way that would issue a warning to the world about climate change:

Sebastian Copeland

Photographing a region like Antarctica took what Copeland describes as "constant adjustment" in order to get the pictures he wanted. He faced geographic hurdles in trying to reach the regions he wanted to photograph. And even when he managed to physically get where he needed to be, nature took its toll: "It's cold, it's wet, distant from any type of civilization ... or help if something goes wrong," Copeland described.

Despite the conditions, he did manage to get on land to take his favorite picture featured in the book. He even managed to wrangle up a tripod and photograph this image as a large format panoramic:

Sebastian Copeland

As for his decision to photograph Antarctica in the first place, Copeland's answer was simple. "Nothing communicates climate change as effectively as ice," he said. In six months, he will be heading back to again photograph Antarctica and the effects of global warming. This time, however, he won't have a problem hitting land to shoot. He'll be covering 800 miles of the territory on foot.

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By Claire O'Neill

At 86, Herman Leonard has seen and photographed a lot. Born in Pennsylvania in 1923, he moved to New York City after serving in the army during World War II. He was young, photography was evolving and jazz was in its heyday. Packed, smoky nightclubs became Leonard's regular haunts. But he also had special access to jazz events and festivals. In light of the upcoming 55th Newport Jazz Festival (check out NPR Music's special coverage), Leonard looks back at some of his earliest festival photographs of the jazz greats -- taken nearly 55 years ago.

Louis Armstrong, Newport Jazz Festival, 1955 (Courtesy Herman Leonard Photography, LLC)

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Herman Leonard in Studio City, Calif. (Corey Takahashi)

The inaugural Newport Jazz Festival, established by jazz impresario George Wein, was held in 1954. The following year, Wein hosted the festival at his home, where these images were taken. Through the years, Leonard has photographed Einstein, Brando and Sartre -- but it's his images of jazz musicians that have the most soul.

Having seen nearly nine decades of both musical and photographic evolution, Leonard shared his stories with reporter Corey Takahashi. Hear the veteran reflect on the digitization of his vocation:

• Previously based out of New Orleans, Leonard lost a large part of his photographic archives in Hurricane Katrina. Hear him discuss this experience, as well as his photographic career, on All Things Considered.
• Leonard was also recently awarded a $33,000 Grammy grant to digitize his archives.
More about Leonard
• You may also be interested in NPR's new jazz blog, A Blog Supreme

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By Claire O'Neill

Somehow it's already August! That means much of the summer has passed, and soon we'll be retiring our swimsuits and preparing for fall. In America, this is also the season for state fairs: wonderfully gluttonous gatherings where fried foods, centrifugal force and prized livestock reign supreme. In the most recent issue of National Geographic, A Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor writes an ode to the state fair, accompanied by Joel Sartore's photography. Hear Keillor discuss it on Talk of the Nation.

With dry humor Keillor describes that strange love/hate relationship so many of us have with these festive affairs. We're seduced by the food, the crowds, the rides, the carnival culture in general. And, oddly enough, those are the same things that leave us feeling sick and exhausted by the end of the day.

Sartore, best known as a wildlife photographer, was seduced by the fair as well -- probably by the same observational inklings that routinely land him in the wild. Fairs are, after all, a breeding ground for odd and visually interesting behavior. Livestock and look-alike competitions, the whirring lights of roller coasters at night, "carnies" performing tricks and feats -- Sartore's photographs take us on a tour of the distinctly American adventure that is a state fair.

To view more photos, and to read Keillor's article, check out ngm.com. Also take a look at this gallery of user-submitted fair photos.

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By Claire O'Neill

Polaroids may be retired, but Denver-based photographer Matt Slaby hasn't stopped using them. Contrarily, he takes them all the time. The instant, lo-res quality of his personal work provides a contrast to his professional, digital assignments. And, because he takes them all over the country while covering various stories, the images together present a unique vision of America: black and white, blurred, seemingly vintage but contemporary.

An Abe Lincoln impostor next to a Barack Obama painting creates a strange sense of suspended time. Flags, guns, neighbors grilling, political conventions, front-yard portraits: Slaby captures the candid moments that typify life in America.

He calls his Polaroid series "Along The Way," but he says it's a working title -- which is appropriate, because the series itself is a work in progress. It's always growing and always changing, but it still provides a thread of consistency through all of his work.

View more of Slaby's Polaroids, as well as the rest of his work, on his Web site. Be sure to check out his series "My Diving Bell:" road trip photos taken through a small car window.

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