In the annals of art history there have been a slew of great romantic collaborations – from Salvador Dali and Gala, Frida and Rivera, Lee Miller and Man Ray and more. Something about art and love brings out the muse. Now, Brooklyn based photographer Billy Kidd and his girlfriend haute milliner Heather Huey have joined forces for a collaborative photographic project called Billy Kidd Shot Heather Huey, which will see its premier at Clic Gallery in New York as part of Fashion Night Out. The series features a series of deep, erotically imbued black and white photographs by Kidd of Huey in some of her creations which include body cages, hats, and other accessories. In the following interview I got a chance to ask Billy and Heather a few questions about art, their relationship, and the their current project. See interview and more photos after the jump. [CLICK HERE...]

Self portrait at the National Hotel, Nevada City, California. photograph by Adarsha Benjamin

a new photograph by Elvis DiFazio

Clark Phillips. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Photograph with dried flowers, as part of a new series by Amanda Charchian

A discovery of a small number of copies of Brian Griffin’s extremely rare classic photobook Open, which features in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s The Photobook: A History, vol. I. is soon available by Dewi Lewis Publishing. Published in 1988 in an edition of only 350 copies, Brian found himself too occupied with other projects to be able to focus on selling all the print run and put the balance into temporary store. Over twenty years later he rediscovered them. Quirky portraits, enigmatic still lifes and landscapes in a similar vein, all appear in Open, which was self-published along with a number of other photobooks by Griffin under the imprint Black Pudding. These were projects of self-expression as well as being ‘calling cards’. Orders are now being taken and the edition will be released in November 2012.

Coming to the Tate Modern this October, an exhibition that explores the relationship between the work of William Klein (born 1928), one of the 20th century’s most important and influential photographers and filmmakers, and that of Daido Moriyama (born 1938), the most celebrated photographer to emerge from the Provoke movement in 1960s Japan. Taking as its central themes the cities of New York and Tokyo, it traces the influence of Klein’s landmark 1956 photo-book, Life is Good & Good for you in New York: Trance Witness Revels, on Japanese photography, using Moriyama as a focus. It brings together for the first time, vintage photographs from Klein’s New York work, as well as those taken in Tokyo and Paris, with work made by Moriyama in the same cities, including landmark projects from the 1970s such as Moriyama’s Another Country in New York, and Farewell Photography. In addition to exploring the central role of the photo-book in the history of avant-garde art, this exhibition examines the use of film and photography in the representation of urban experience and political protest. On view from October 10, 2012, to January 20, 2013, at the Tate Modern.

A pop-up exhibition and zine release by UK photographer Dan Boulton showing work from his long term project documenting the skateboards at London’s notorious rough and ready Southbank. On view for one night, August 24, at Book and Job Gallery, 838 Geary Street, San Francisco.

In the photography of Brian Green, there is a certain raw, unrestrained and immediate intimacy balanced with a straight to the heart mundaneness that is reminiscent of William Eggleston’s bland, yet brilliant portraits of the American South.  And there is a parralel between Green and Eggleston – both are Southerners – Green is based in South Carolina. Just like all great Southern Gothic novels, Green’s lanscape is rife with latent horrors and an effluvious aura of murder and erotica, like freeze frames from the dreams of a ghost with blurry and rough hewn images of skies, roads, grass and signage.  There is also a strict dichotomy between Green’s landscapes and haunting portraits of tattooed women who lay about languorous in twilit and crepuscular Southern skies. See interview and more images after the jump. [SEE MORE...]

Detail of a self portrait by Megan McIsaac