Nadine Barth

Ruth Orkin is a legend of street photography - her atmospheric pictures taken in cities such as Florence, New York and London still shape the image of these metropolises today. But Orkin's specialty not only encompassed the urban but also the personal. This is evident in her unique eye that enabled her street scenes to consistently offer penetrating insights into the time and personality of her subjects. And it likewise shows in her fantastic portraits of celebrities such as Albert Einstein, Woody Allen, and Lauren Bacall. These inimitable images seemingly combine snapshot and pose to present the star in his or her role and at the same time as an autonomous individual. Published on the occasion of the photographer's 100th birthday, this illustrated book celebrates Orkin's life and work with an equally extensive and fascinating overview of this exceptional artist's oeuvre.

The coronavirus pandemic initially called for self-isolation. Without further ado, Max Siedentopf turned his apartment upside down and recorded the results on camera: piles of cans become sculptures, haute couture clothing is made, monsters or traps and bizarre alternatives to toilet paper are discovered. He posted his actions on Instagram and invited followers worldwide to come up with their own versions of his various mottos. This handy survival guide consists of different chapters that cheerfully vary the process of survival in self-chosen or prescribed isolation: from "Invent a new meal" to "Make a painting using tooth brush" to "Balance all your beauty products," everything is included.

There is no question that the Bauhaus was the most influential institution on architecture in the twentieth century. But does this aesthetic legacy live on in buildings? In what shape do we encounter it today, after about 100 years, in changing cityscapes? The photographer Jean Molitor has examined this question in depth all around the world. In his new illustrated volume bau2haus, he tracks the architecture that owes something to the Bauhaus and its special style across the globe. In strongly contrasted black-and-white photographs he draws attention to these fascinating structures. Selected with a meticulous eye, the photos play with perspective, perfectly balancing the openness and existing volume of each building. The result is a vivid history of architecture that readers will hardly be able to get enough of.

The Day May Break, photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020, is the first part of a global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. The people in the photos were all affected by climate change, displaced by cyclones and years-long droughts. Photographed at five sanctuaries, the animals were rescues that can never be re-wilded. As a result, it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, photographed so close to them, within the same frame. The fog on location is the unifying visual, as we increasingly find ourselves in a kind of limbo, a once-recognizable world now fading from view. However, in spite of their loss, these people and animals are the survivors. And therein lies possibility and hope.