It's no secret that mental health dictates our lives, and depictions of what it's like when our health fails us often veer hilariously toward stock. This series doesn’t escape that fate, but rather leans into it. The weight of these issues is revealed in both the premise, and in some interpretations, the butt of the joke. Allison Crouse purposefully places herself in banal situations rendered both funny and disturbing.
—Kate Bubacz, deputy photo director, BuzzFeed News
Photographer Jack Garland's Winter Neighborhood series explores scenes of his hometown through the capture of long exposures. Garland's use of this photographic process allows for ambient lighting from the moon, streetlights, and home interiors to bleed color into the blackness that we'd ordinarily expect from night photography. Overall, there's a sense of unease in the images, with the viewer always outside looking in — sometimes toward the safety of an interior's warm, glowing lights, and others at a safe distance from a home's cold, dark, and menacing shell.
—Laura Geiser, senior photo editor, BuzzFeed News
We can all agree: It's very, very cold. This series won’t warm you up any, but it might give you some sympathy for those who can’t retreat indoors (those pigeons look…very icy) and some appreciation for Mother Nature from a safe remove from her clutches. May we all thaw out soon.
—K.B.
In the era before Instagram, Warhol's Polaroids were a social network all their own. To be caught before the lens of his Polaroid Big Shot camera was to be considered among the top echelon of the day's influencers — celebrities, musicians, athletes, the rich and famous — each rendered in these quick, candid, and stunning snapshots. Here, BJP examines a new exhibition of these exciting photographs and highlights their lasting legacy.
—Gabriel H. Sanchez, photo essay editor, BuzzFeed News
This New York Times profile on the work of 19th-century French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey will be a delight for both photo nerds and history buffs alike. Outlining an incredible new exhibition of Girault’s work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, this story explores his photographic journey across 1800s Europe and into regions as far east as Aleppo, revealing a striking and early portrait of the world on the cusp of modernity. This one is a must-see.
—G.H.S.
These satellite images from the International Space Station, curated by photographer Andreas Gefeller, of shimmering urban sprawl expanding into the darkness present as a sort of Rorschach test. In a reversal of the game spent looking for shapes in the clouds, viewers can peer at city centers shot from the atmosphere and will find it difficult not to see familiar forms take shape in these dazzling vignettes.
—L.G.
Here is a lyrical story the emphasizes the strength of love beyond borders and traditions. Poland’s historically Catholic society does not acknowledge homosexuality, but that has not deterred Honorata and Agnieszka from sharing their story and their family with photographer Anna Liminowicz, who here reveals the mundane, the brutal, and the beautiful in this ongoing photo series.
—K.B.
From the extreme cold gripping the Midwest to preparations for Super Bowl 53, these are the most striking and memorable images from this past week.
—G.H.S.