Yola Monakhov’s project Empire Pictures weaves together images loosely connected to the Hudson River and her depictions of people leave me stunned. This photographer’s heightened interest in and sensitivity to the lives of others give her subjects dignity and importance. Strangers she has met in passing seem to be sharing openly with her camera what we are too shy to admit to ourselves. Somehow, they are as curious about her as she is about them.

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Stanley Kubrick was a writer and director famous for movies such as Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining. Before he began directing, he was a photographer for LOOK Magazine between 1945 and 1950. The Museum of the City of New York and VandM have recently chosen 25 of Kubrick’s photographs out of 10,000 negatives to sell, with the majority of the proceeds going to the Museum of the City of New York.

Having lived in New York for over two years now, transplanted from the sunny beachside landscape of Sydney, Australia, I appreciate the gritty realism, yet positiveness and vibrancy in the photographic series on Manhattan locals by British writer and photographer, Ian Woolverton. In addition to his talents with the lense, Woolverton also has two humanitarian awards: one for the Australian Red Cross Service Medal for his achievements in the Bali bomb response and the other, Australian Government’s Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal, for covering the tsunami in Aceh.