Photo copyright Eadweard Muybridge/U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office

Unseen photographs from Eadweard Muybridge, the 19th century photographer who pioneered the use of multiple cameras to capture motion, will be shown to the public for the first time ever in Britain later this year.

Muybridge (1830-1904) will be the subject of a brand new exhibit at the Tate Britain museum in London beginning in September. The show will be a retrospective of the photographer’s experiments in the emerging artform, and will include his famous images of humans and animals in motion (like the iconic The Horse in Motion), as well as his photographs of the American West during the 1860s.

Most notable in the exhibit however will be a series of never-before-seen images (like the one above, titled First-Order Light-house at Punta de los Reyes, Seacoast of California, 296 Feet Above Sea (4136), 1871) that will feature early pictures of lighthouses from Muybridge’s work for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The exhibit will also feature rare cyanotypes (blue photographic prints) that are the closest thing to negatives ever found of Muybridge’s work.

The Edweard Muybridge photography retrospective can be seen at the Tate Britain starting September 8 through January 16, 2011.

“Migrant Mother,” 1936.  Photo copyright Dorothea Lange/Library of Congress

In a new book on American photographer Dorothea Lange, biographer Linda Gordon goes behind the camera of one of the most influential documentary photographers and photojournalists of the last century.

Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits chronicles the extraordinary beginnings of one of America’s most celebrated photographers, offering a candid look at Lange’s struggles with obstacles such as her own physical disability (a childhood bout with polio left her with a deformed right foot) and her efforts to document The Great Depression.

In the new book, Gordon makes clear that Lange knew the only way to convey the tragedies and devastation of the Depression was not to show desolate fields and sand storms, but people themselves. Lange’s most famous photograph, of course, did just that.

“Migrant Mother,” as it is now known, has become the defining image of The Great Depression. The photograph shows Florence Owens Thompson and her children in 1936 in Nipomo, California, destitute and haggard from searching for work as migrant farmers. The family had been living off frozen vegetables they found in the ground, Lange would explain in an interview decades later, and had just sold the tires from their car for food.

At just 32 years-old, Thompson’s face is aged with desperation and anxiety, yet Lange managed to capture the woman’s deeper beauty, says Gordon.

“That’s really part of what Lange’s genius was about,” Gordon told NPR in a recent interview. “That she could make pictures of very poor people — people very, very hard hit — and still make them extremely attractive individuals.”

More than just a documentary photographer, Lange created a style and ethic that influenced countless photojournalists, artists and activists, and her story is an essential brick in the broader history of photography itself.

Linda Gordon’s new book, Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits, is available in stores now. To hear an interview with Gordon, click here.

“Biker Couple in a Bar.” Photo Copyright Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper has always been more than just an actor. The screen legend, whose health has fallen in recent years due to a battle with cancer, is also an accomplished photographer and painter. Now his art may finally be getting the recognition it deserves — an exhibition of Hopper’s work will be shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles beginning in July.

Curated by Hopper’s close friend, painter and film director Julian Schnabel, the exhibit is called “Art is Life” and will feature the actor’s intimate photographic portraits of celebrities like Andy Warhol, Paul Newman and Tina Turner, as well as abstract expressionist paintings, sculptures, and special installations inspired by some of his most notable films. The exhibit seeks to show Hopper as a gifted artist, on all fronts.

“The American art world often likes to put artists into boxes,” MOCA director Jeffrey Deitch told the LA Times. “You’re an artist, not a filmmaker. You’re a photographer, not a painter. But Dennis shows you can blur those boundaries.”

Much of Hopper’s work in photography emerged during the ’60s, a decade in between his roles in Rebel Without a Cause with James Dean and Easy Rider with Jack Nicholson that found him snubbed by Hollywood because of his bad-boy reputation. But after receiving his first camera as a gift, he found photography to be a life line.

“I never made a cent from these photos. They cost me money but kept me alive,” Hopper would say later. “They were the only creative outlet I had for these years until Easy Rider. “

Now, after a half-century on the big screen, Hopper’s other art is finally getting its turn in the spotlight. Unfortunately the legendary actor, who turns 74 next month, is currently suffering from terminal prostate cancer. The exhibit’s creators say they have put the presentation together quickly so that Hopper can participate.

“We’re rushing this exhibition because Dennis is ailing,” Deitch said, “and I wanted him to be able to participate in the selection of works.”

Dennis Hopper’s “Life is Art” is scheduled to open at LA’s MOCA on July 11.

The winning photograph, Layered Landscape: a moment captured. Photo copyright Marianne Majerus

U.K. photographer Marianne Majerus has won the International Garden Photographer of the Year 2010 award for her gorgeous shot of a garden at sunrise.

Majerus, who received a prize purse of £5,000 (about $7,500), produced what judges called the single best image of the competition with “Layered Landscape: a moment captured.” Chosen from the Garden Views category, the photograph captures the beautiful moment when the morning sun shines through the trees and onto the plants of a lush Luxembourg garden.

Judges of the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY) competition, now in its third year, found this year’s selection process particularly challenging.

“This year the judges had an even more difficult job than usual,” says organizer Philip Smith. “The judging process took over two months and reviewed many thousands of inspiring and impressive entries received from around the world. We are tremendously excited by the winning images.”

Other winners at the competition include Rachel Warne, also from the UK, who was awarded the Best Portfolio Prize. Her series of photographs titled “The Present Past: a forgotten place” capture the mysterious atmosphere of a deserted kitchen garden. The Young Garden Photographer of the Year title went to 15 year-old American Matthew Tauzer for his shot of snow-covered trees at a Japanese garden in Portland, Oregon.

To see all the winning photographs from this year’s competition, and to enter your own images into next year’s contest, visit www.igpoty.com.

Nelson Mandela. Photo copyright Neal Menschel

In the latest episode of “Advancing Your Photography,” Marc Silber sits down with famed photojournalist Neal Menschel to discuss his career as a photographer, as well as his tips and techniques on how to improve your own photography.

With a career that spans over 25 years, Neal Menschel has photographed some of the most important world events of the last few decades. He captured the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, photographed Nelson Mandela when apartheid ended in South Africa, and has covered half a dozen different presidential elections. He was director of photography at the Christian Science Monitor for 13 years, and his clients have included Newsweek and the New York Times.

Neal’s images capture the depth and emotion indicative of a master photographer. His experiences working as a photojournalist and teacher of photography have given him insight into what it takes to capture incredible photos, and he is unique as an artist in how effectively he is able to teach these techniques to others.

Watch the interview and you’ll learn all about:

1. The Importance of Anticipation — In Neal’s line of work, you never know when the unpredictable will happen. That’s why you always have to be on top of your game and ready to shoot at the drop of a hat. Watch Neal discuss how he keeps himself prepared for any situation.

2. Creating a Rapport with Your Subject — Many of Neal’s photographs manage to capture an emotional depth in his subjects because he has spent the time to get to know them before he even lifts a camera to his eye. Watch as he describes the importance of developing a rapport with the people he is shooting, and how this relationship turns into a “collaboration” that is essential to great photography.

3. How to Capture a Heart-Grabbing Image — From composition and lighting suggestions to the importance of using Sandisk cards (“in ten years I’ve never had one fail,” he says), Neal offers specific tips and tricks on what you can do to create moving, heart-wrenching images.

To see more of Neal Menschel’s tips and techniques on how to improve your photography, be sure to watch the latest episode of “Advancing Your Photography” with Marc Silber. Also, check out more of Neal’s amazing work over at www.nealmenschel.com.

The new site layout!

Hello, everyone! Big news here at SilberStudios.tv – I’m proud to announce the launch of our brand new website!  In addition to a face lift of the overall design, the new site is now integrated with the Silber Studios site.  That means you now have complete and easy access to my photography studio, Silber Studios, which has been home to the Marc Silber Show since 2008.

Beginning with our first photo video, Photowalking with Marc Silber and Robert Scoble back in October of ’08, the Marc Silber Show has produced nearly 50 subsequent videos.  It’s been a wild ride, and we’ve learned a lot since then (and hopefully you have to).

One of the things we realized was that our initial site design, which listed videos vertically, had become quite unwieldy if you wanted to quickly view all the videos available. So in our quest to make the art of photography as fun, engaging and simple as possible, we decided it was time to update.

Introducing Silber Studios 2.0! With a new grid layout (which allows you to quickly find specific videos), pages that now include 6 links to other videos, an expanded movie player size, and a randomization of which videos are displayed (so you’ll never have the same visual experience on a page), Silber Studios is committed to creating new features that will help you find the best tips and tricks from today’s top photographers.

And that’s just for today! There are some very exciting features coming soon that are still in development, so make sure to stay tuned for future improvements.

In the meantime, I invite you to check out the new site. And don’t forget to leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Australian sea lions, 1986. Copyright David Doubilet

Some of the most iconic images ever captured of nature will be sold at auction in honor of Earth Day, with proceeds going to numerous environmental organizations.

Dubbed the “top 40 nature photographs of all time” by the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP), the collection spans the last two centuries and will include photographs from such masters as Ansel Adams, Pulitzer Prize-winning landscape art photographer and documentary photojournalist Jack Dykinga, underwater photographer Brian Skerry and multiple National Geographic photographers.

The collection contains stunning images that many photographers and nature-lovers have seen before: “Polar Dance” by Tom Mangelsen captures two massive polar bears grappling in a snow storm; “Petrified Sand Dunes and Reflection,” by Jack Dykinga, shows a beautiful spiraling of color, water and hardened rock in the canyons of Arizona; “Tortoises at Dawn,” by Frans Lanting, shows a surreal scene where tortoises rest in a mist-draped pond. It’s an incredible image that, as Lanting describes it, “evokes the era when reptiles dominated life on land.”

These photos, and the rest in the collection, represent for ILCP President and photographer Cristina Mittermeier a chance to show people the incredible beauty of the natural world while also spreading the message of conservation.

“One of the brightest contributions of photography to the preservation of special landscapes and creatures around the world is that images are able to shed light on some of the darkest, most remote corners of our planet,” Mittermeier said. “I’ve seen first-hand how photographs like these arrest the eye, invite reflection, provoke emotion, and become a shared experience that gifts us with a larger vision of the world.”

The auction, which will be held Thursday, April 22, at Christie’s at Rockefeller Center in New York City, will be broadcast live on the internet through www.Christies.com. You can also participate in the silent auction afterward, and bid on signed prints of the top 40 nature images, at www.ABidtoSavetheEarth.org.

Irving Penn’s 2 Guedras

A famous 1972 photograph by Irving Penn of two Guedra dancers from Morocco sold for a whopping $314,500 at auction this past week, the centerpiece of the largest collection of photos from the iconic photographer ever to be put up for sale.

A platinum-palladium print, “2 Guedras” was given an estimated price of $40,000 – $60,000, yet fetched much higher than anyone could have predicted. The image shows two thickly veiled women posing for their picture. Penn himself described the dancers from Goulimine, Morocco, as artists whose dance “has its roots in a very ancient cultural ceremony, a symbolism that has been lost in time.”

“Those chosen sat, eyes fixed on the lens, enjoying the camera’s scrutiny yet themselves impenetrable, unhurried during the considerable time we spent together,” Penn said.

Also at the Christie’s auction was an autographed retrospective from famed Canadian-Armenian portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh. A signed copy of the book that takes a look at Karsh’s 50+ year career is priced at $980.

Irving Penn, who was more widely known for his fashion photography, died late last year at the age of 92.

Two photojournalists, Craig F. Walker of The Denver Post and Mary Chind of The Des Moines Register, have been awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prizes for Photography.

Chind’s photo of a daring water rescue (above) won the award for Best Breaking News Photograph. The image, published in July of last year, captures what the Pulitzer board called the “heart stopping moment” in which a man reaches into the rapids in a desperate attempt to rescue a drowning woman.

The woman’s husband died after the pair went over a dam in a boat, and rescue workers could not reach her. Finally a local construction worker set-up a makeshift harness from a crane and lowered himself just above the raging water. Chind’s incredible photograph captures the scene as he heroically plucks the woman from the water.

In the other major category, Craig F. Walker won the award for Best Feature Photography for his moving photo essay of a teenage soldier’s journey before, during and after his enlistment in the Army. Walker followed Ian Fisher for 27 months, from recruitment and training through deployment to Iraq and finally his return home.

The Pulitzer board lauded Walker’s work as “an intimate portrait of a teenager who joins the Army at the height of insurgent violence in Iraq, poignantly searching for meaning and manhood.” A full tour through Walker’s project can be seen at DenverPost.com.

The new Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit will visit Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta

Henri Cartier-Bresson, master French photographer and pioneer of photojournalism in the 20th century, will have his first exhibit in the United States in nearly 30 years when a retrospective of his work opens at the New York Museum of Modern Art on Sunday.

“Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century” will include 300 or so of the famed photographer’s most iconic images, along with special presentations, lectures and several documentary films. It is the first retrospective of his work since he passed away in 2004 at the age of 95.

The exhibit will include many photographs never seen before by the public, including his lesser-known work from the United States.  There will also be giant maps that trace Bresson’s world travels (noting when and where certain works were produced), exhibit sections split by his work in the “Old” and “New Worlds,” as well as portraits of many of the century’s most celebrated artists and thinkers, like Jean Paul Sartre, Henri Matisse and Truman Capote.

Bresson, who once said “there is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment,” lived a life capturing the decisive moments around him. His uncropped, black-and-white images managed to find the subtle beauty buried within the “real” world people experienced everyday.

The Bresson exhibit runs at the MOMA through June 28, and from there it will head to Chicago in July, San Francisco in October and Atlanta in early 2011.